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FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  IMAGINATION   IN  SPINOZA 
AND  HUME 

A  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  SOME  RECENT 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  PSYCHOLOGY 

A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTIES    OF    THE    GRADUATE    SCHOOLS    OF  ARTS 

LITERATURE,  AND    SCIENCE,  IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE 

DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF   philosophy) 


BY 

WILLARD  CLARK  GORE 


CHICAGO 

IQ02 


V3f?f 


'-'. 


Copyright,  IQ02 
By  Willard  Clark  Gore 


CONTENTS. 

l'AGE. 

Part      I.     A  Statement  of  Spinoza's  Theory  of  the  Imagination        -         -         -       7 

Sec.  i.    The  Nature  of  Spinoza's  Problem  ...       7 

Sec.  2.    The  End  Proposed  by  Spinoza  as  the  Solution  9 

Sec.  3.    The  Means  for  Attaining  the  End  in    -         -         -         -         -11 

(a)  The  Tractatus  de  Intellectus  Emendatione        -         -         -11 

(£>)  The  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus  -         -         -         -     16 

(c)  The  Ethics 23 

Sec.  4-   Summary  of  the  Statement  of  Spinoza's  Theory  of  the  Imagi- 
nation -         -         -         -         -         --         -         -         -30^ 

Part     II.     Hume's  Theory  of  the  Imagination  ------  32 

Sec.  1.    The  Nature  of  Hume's  Problem   ------  32 

Sec.  2.    Senses  in  Which  Hume  Uses  the  Word  "Imagination"'         -  33 

(a)  Imagination  Distinguished  from  Memory         -         -         -  33 

(&)  Imagination  Distinguished  from  Reason  -         -         -  35 

(c)  Imagination  Distinguished  from  Habit,  Association,  and 

Emotion         ---------     37 

Sec.  3.    The    Function  of    the    Imagination    in    Hume's  Theory  of 

Knowledge  - 40 

Sec.  4.    Criticism      ----------     45 

Sec.  5.    Summary  Comparison  of  Spinoza  and  Hume         -         -         -     46 

— -- 

Part  III.     Psychology  of  the  Imagination         -------  49 

Sec.  1.   The  Use  of  Terms       --------  ^g 

Sec.  2.    Recent  Specific  Contributions  to  the  Psychology  of  the  Imagi- 
nation ----------  50 

Sec.  3.    A  Psychological  Analysis  of  Image  Development  -         -  54 

Applications  and  Conclusion        -        -        -        - 71 


00? 


NOTE. 

The  page  references  to  Spinoza's  writings  refer  either  to  the 
translation  by  Elwes,  two  volumes,  London,  1 891,  or  to  the 
Opera,  two  volumes,  edited  by  Van  Vloten  and  Land,  The 
Hague,  1882-83.  When  both  are  referred  to,  E.  designates  the 
translation,  and  L.  the  Opera.  The  page  references  to  Hume's 
writings  refer  to  the  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  edited  by  Selby- 
Bigge,  Oxford,  1896. 


A  COMPARATIVE    STUDY   OF  THE   THEORIES   OF  THE 
IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME. 

The  object  of  this  study  is  to  make  a  specific  test,  or  at  least  to  find 
an  illustration,  of  the  general  proposition  that  philosophy,  or  meta- 
physics, and  psychology  form  a  logical  partnership,  an  organic  unity, 
which  cannot  be  ignored  or  dissolved  without  impairing  interests  that 
each  holds  to  be  peculiarly  its  own. 

Such  a  proposition  is  liable  to  be  greeted  either  as  harmlessly  com- 
monplace, or  as  hopelessly  behind  the  times,  or  as  absurdly  prema- 
ture, according  to  the  local  conditions  which  it  chances  to  encounter. 
Few  would  deny,  I  suppose,  that  philosophy  and  psychology  are  related 
members  of  one  body  of  knowledge,  and  a  good  deal  of  philosophizing 
as  to  the  organic  nature  of  that  relationship  would  doubtless  be  good- 
naturedly  tolerated  even  by  some  who  would  be  the  first  to  resent  the 
logical  consequences  of  this  kind  of  philosophizing.  Again,  there  are 
those  who,  granting  that  philosophy,  or  "metaphysics,"  and  psychology 
have  been  intimately  associated  in  the  past,  perhaps  not  altogether  to 
the  detriment  of  the  latter  in  some  instances,  would  at  the  same  time 
dwell  upon  the  fact  that  psychology,  following  the  example  of  the  natural 
sciences,  has  long  made  good  its  escape  from  the  leading-strings  of  its 
ancient  mother.  And,  finally,  there  are  those  who  would  assert  that  a 
new  and  real  unification  of  the  two  disciplines,  a  recognition  of  the 
partnership,  would  seem  to  be  quite  unwarrantable  and  premature, 
being  without  adequate' scientific  backing  from  any  source,  and  thus 
affording  a  prospect  so  vague  and  remote  as  not  to  appear  worthy  of 
serious  consideration. 

It  is  not  so  much  with  the  intention  of  verifying  the  proposition  or 
hypothesis  in  question  as  it  is  with  the  hope  of  making  it  less  vague 
and  remote  in  some  particulars,  that  this  critical  examination  of  a  nar- 
rowly restricted  portion  of  the  field  has  been  attempted,  namely,  the 
theories  regarding  the  imagination  which  are  found  in  the  philosophies 
of  Spinoza  and  of  Hume.  No  especial  reason  need  be  given  for  choos- 
ing this  particular  subject-matter,  save  that  it  is  concerned  with  psycho- 
logical specimens  which  are  found  growing  in  philosophical  soil ;  many 

5 


6  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

other  topics  would  doubtless  have  served  the  purpose  as  well,  if  not  bet- 
ter. The  method  employed  —  that  of  presenting  contrasting  theories 
for  mutual  criticism  —  is  purely  subordinate  to  the  end  in  view,  and  is 
rather  an  after-thought  than  an  essential  condition,  since  it  occurred 
to  the  writer  only  after  Part  I,  which  deals  with  Spinoza's  theory  of  the 
imagination,  had  taken  what  is  practically  its  present  form. 


PART  I. 

A  STATEMENT  OF  SPINOZA'S  THEORY   OF  THE  IMAGINATION. 

Spinoza's  identification  of  the  imagination  with  the  source  of  all 
falsehood,  error,  and  confusion — a  doctrine  which  runs  in  varying  forms 
through  nearly  all  of  his  works,  and  which  is  so  fully  and  consistently 
worked  out,  taking  it  as  a  whole,  that  it  may  fairly  be  called  a  theory 
of  the  imagination  —  is  not  to  be  intelligently  stated  or  appreciated,  it 
almost  goes  without  saying,  apart  from  the  main  body  of  his  philosophy- 
What  was  the  need,  the  problem,  that  this  doctrine  arose  to  meet  ? 
What  did  it  contribute  toward  the  attainment  of  the  end  proposed  as  a 
solution  ?  In  what  respects,  if  any,  does  it  appear  inconsistent,  or 
inadequate  ?  and  why  ?  These  questions  openly  confess  to  the  assump- 
tions that  Spinoza  was  conscious  of  a  problem,  did  propose  a  certain 
end  as  a  solution,  and  developed  a  theory  of  the  imagination  as  one  of 
the  means — not  necessarily  the  only  one — of  attaining  the  end.  It  is 
believed,  however,  that  these  assumptions  rest  on  Spinoza's  own  state- 
ments, especially  on  those  in  the  autobiographical  portion  of  that 
propaedeutic  to  his  philosophy,  the  Tractatus  de  Intellectus  Emen- 
datione. 

SEC.   I.        THE    NATURE     OF    SPINOZA'S     PROBLEM. 

Experience,  we  are  told  in  the  Tractatus  de  Intellectus  Emendatione, 
had  taught  Spinoza  that  the  commonly  accepted  goods  of  life  are  vain 
and  futile ;  that  the  all-absorbing  ideals  commonly  conceived  to  con- 
stitute the  sunimum  bonum  —  riches,  fame,  and  the  pleasures  of  sense — 
when  realized  are  found  to  be  uncertain  and  fleeting,  followed  by 
melancholy  and  a  dulled  intellect  in  the  case  of  the  pleasures  of  sense, 
and  by  perpetual  dissatisfaction  with  successive  attainment  in  the  case 
of  fame  and  riches. 

The  same  problem  is  suggested  elsewhere  in  Spinoza's  writings. 
In  that  earliest  of  his  writings  —  the  Dialogue  between  Understanding, 
Love,  Reason,  and  Desire,  composed  probably  four  or  five  years  prior 
to  his  excommunication  —  there  is  a  trace  of  the  same  kind  of  dissatis- 
faction. At  the  beginning  of  the  dialogue  Love  questions  the  Under- 
standing regarding  the  nature  and  existence  of  an  absolutely  perfect 
being ;    Understanding  answers  that  such  a  being  and   the  whole  of 

7 


0  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

nature  are  one,  and  Reason  is  called  upon  to  corroborate  this  intuitive 
assertion.  Then  Desire  breaks  in  with  an  attempt  to  point  out  contra- 
dictions in  the  answers  that  Understanding  and  Reason  have  given; 
and  advises  Love  to  remain  content  with  the  things  that  he,  Desire, 
has  shown  to  her.     Love  turns  on  Desire  with  these  bitter  words  : 

You  shameless  wretch  !  What  things  have  you  shown  to  me,  save  those 
from  which  would  follow  my  ruin  ?  For  if  I  had  ever  allied  myself  to  the 
things  which  you  have  shown  me,  from  that  hour  I  should  have  been  pursued 
by  the  two  arch-fiends  of  the  human  race  —  Hatred  and  Remorse  —  and  now 
and  then  by  Forgetfulness.  Therefore  I  turn  again  to  Reason.  May  he  con- 
tinue, and  stop  the  mouths  of  those  fiends.     (Sigwart,  German  transl.,  p.  26.) 

The  same  note  is  struck  in  the  second  part  of  the  Brevis  Tractatus 
de  Deo,  Ho7)iine  et  Beatudine,  Chap.  V,  where  we  are  told  that  we  become 
weak  and  miserable  through  love  of  transient  things.  To  be  sure, 
there  is  a  still  harder  fate  possible  for  us;  for  Spinoza  concludes  this 
paragraph  by  saying  : 

If  those  who  love  transient  things,  which  have  some  degree  of  reality, 
are  so  miserable,  how  is  it  possible  to  conceive  the  misery  of  those  who  love 
fame,  riches,  and  the  pleasures  of  sense,  which  have  no  reality  at  all ! 

The  essentially  objective  reference  of  the  dissatisfaction  is  the 
important  thing  to  note.  Spinoza's  pessimism  is  far  from  the  pessimism 
of  Schopenhauer.  It  is  not  a  despair  born  of  a  sense  of  the  all-devour- 
ing, yet  perpetually  hungry,  character  of  the  will  itself.  It  is  not  a 
pessimism  with  reference  to  the  nature  of  desire  itself,  but  it  is  a  pes- 
simism, or  —  if  that  is  too  strong  a  word— -a  deep-seated  dissatisfaction, 
with  reference  to  the  ordinary  objects  of  desire. 

All  the  objects  pursued  by  the  multitude  not  only  bring  no  remedy  that 
tends  to  preserve  our  being,  but  even  act  as  hindrances,  causing  the  death 
not  seldom  of  those  who  possess  them,  and  always  of  those  who  are  possessed 
by  them.1 

After  mentioning  examples  of  this  fatal  tendency,  Spinoza  con- 
cludes that  : 

All  these  evils  seem  to  have  arisen  from  the  fact  that  happiness  or  unhappi- 
ness  is  made  wholly  to  depend  on  the  quality  of  the  object  which  we  love.  When 
a  thing  is  not  loved,  no  quarrels  will  arise  concerning  it  —  no  sadness  will  be 
felt  if  it  perishes — no  envy  if  it  is  possessed  by  another  —  no  fear,  no  hatred; 

1  "Ilia  autera  omnia,  quae  vulgus  sequitur,  non  tantum  nullum  conferunt  remedium  ad  nostrum  esse 
conservandum,  sed  etiam  id  impediunt,  et  frequenter  sunt  causa  interitus  eorum,  qui  ea  possident,  et 
semper  causa  interitus  eorum,  qui  ab  iis  possidentur."     (  Trac.  de  Intell.  Em.,  p.  4.) 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  9 

in  short,  no  disturbances  of  the  mind.    All  these  arise  from  the  love  of  what  is 
perishable,  such  as  the  objects  already  mentioned.1 

Let  these  brief  statements,  insignificant  though  they  may  appear  in 
comparison  with  the  great  systematic  developments  of  his  thought,  be 
given  their  due  weight,  and  they  will  be  found  to  afford  some  idea,  it 
is  believed,  of  Spinoza's  fundamental  problem,  which  was  an  ethical 
problem,  perhaps  the  ethical  problem,  the  problem  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  good.  Scarcely  more  than  the  origin  of  this  problem  has  been 
touched  upon,  its  origin  in  the  feeling  of  intense  dissatisfaction  with 
the  fleeting  and  perishable  objects,  the  barren  ideals,  which  are  pur- 
sued by  the  multitude,  with  the  so-called  goods  of  this  life  —  riches, 
honor,  and  pleasure  —  with  "the  worldly  hope  men  set  their  hearts 
upon,"  which  — 

"  Like  snow  upon  the  desert's  dusty  face, 
Lighting  a  little  hour  or  two  —  is  gone." 

It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  this  dissatisfaction  had  any 
sentimental  or  aesthetic  interest  for  Spinoza.  Rather  was  it  a  stimulus 
to  a  solution,  to  the  discovery  of  a  true  and  eternal  good. 

Postquam  me  experientia  docuit,  omnia,  quae  in  communi  vita  fre- 
quenter occurrunt,  vana  et  futilia  esse  :  .  .  .  .  constitui  tandem  inquirere 
an  aliquid  daretur,  quod  verum  bonum,  et  sui  communicabile  esset,  et  a  quo 
solo,  rejectis  caetens  omnibus,  animus  afficeretur ;  imo  an  aliquid  daretur, 
quo  invento  et  acquisito,  continua  ac  summa  in  aeternum  fruerer  laetitia. 
{Trac.  de  Intell.  Em.,  p.  3.) 

To  this  positive  interest  in  the  problem  we  now  pass. 

SEC.  II.       THE    END    PROPOSED    BY    SPINOZA    AS    THE    SOLUTION. 

The  end  or  ideal  proposed  by  Spinoza  as  the  solution,  and  virtu- 
ally set  over  against  the  fleeting,  partial  goods  pursued  by  the  multi- 
tude, is  that  of  a  true  good,  a  verum  bonum,  an  eternal,  infinite  good,  a 
fixed  good  {fixum  enim  bonum  quaerebam),  a  good  "  having  the  power 
to  communicate  itself,  which  would  affect  the  mind  singly,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  else ;  "  a  good  "  the  discovery  and  attainment  of  which 
would  enable  one  to  enjoy  continuous,  supreme,  and  unending  happi- 
ness." But  how  is  such  a  good  to  be  obtained  ?  Spinoza  says  that  he 
made  many  efforts  to  arrive  at  this  new  principle,  or  at  any  rate  at  a 

1  "  Videbantur  porro  ex  eo  haec  orta  esse  mala,  quod  tota  felicitas  aut  infelicitas  in  hoc  solo  sita  est, 
videlicet,  in  qualitate  objecti,  cui  adhaeremus  amore.  Nam  propter  illud,  quod  non  amatur,  nunquam 
orientur  Iites,  nulla  erit  tristitia,  si  pereat,  nulla  invidia,  si  ab  alio  possideatur,  nullus  timor,  nullum, 
odium,  et,  ut  verbo  dicam,  nullae  commotiones  animi:  quae  quidem  omnia  contingunt  in  amore  eorum, 
quae  perire  possunt,  uti  h^ec  omnia,  de  quibus  modo  locuti  sumus."     {Trac.  de  Intell.  Em.,  p.  5.) 


IO  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

certainty  concerning  its  existence,  without  changing  the  conduct  and 
usual  plan  of  his  life,  but  in  vain.  Compromise  was  impossible. 
Either  the  ordinary  pursuits  and  ideals  of  life  must  be  abandoned,  or 
else  the  quest  for  the  verum  bonum.  He  felt  that  he  must  choose 
between  a  possessed  good  uncertain  and  transient  in  its  nature,  and 
a  good  not  uncertain  in  its  nature  (Jlxum  cnim  bonum  quaerebani),  but 
uncertain  in  the  possibility  of  its  attainment. 

Further  reflection  convinced  me  that,  if  I  could  really  get  to  the  root  of 
the  matter,  I  should  be  leaving  certain  evils  for  a  certain  good.  I  thus  per- 
ceived that  I  was  in  a  state  of  great  peril,  and  I  compelled  myself  to  seek 
with  all  my  strength  for  a  remedy,  however  uncertain  it  might  be  ;  as  a  sick 
man  struggling  with  a  deadly  disease,  when  he  sees  that  death  will  surely  be 
upon  him  unless  a  remedy  be  found,  is  compelled  to  seek  such  a  remedy  with 
all  his  strength,  inasmuch  as  his  whole  hope  lies  therein.1 

Spinoza's  logical  method,  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word,  was  con- 
ceived in  this  struggle.  The  fundamental  significance  of  the  logical 
method  was,  and  is,  that  it  emerged  in  the  course  of  the  struggle,  and 
that  it  began  at  once  to  exercise  a  modifying  influence  upon  the  con- 
flicting elements,  transforming  the  end  and  discovering  the  means  for 
its  realization.  The  end  is  transformed  by  being  stated  in  intellectual 
terms.  The  highest  good  ceases  to  be  a  mystic  abstraction  set  over 
against  the  partial,  concrete  values  of  the  life  that  now  is.  Spinoza 
was  forced  to  recognize  that  human  weakness  cannot  attain  in  its  own 
thoughts  to  the  eternal  order  and  fixed  laws  of  nature.  At  the  same 
time  he  asserted  that  a  man  can  conceive  a  human  character  much 
more  stable  (multo  firmiorem)  than  his  own,  and  that  such  a  man 
sees  no  reason  why  he  should  not  acquire  such  a  character,  and  is  led 
to  seek  for  means  which  will  bring  him  to  this  pitch  of  perfection, 
calling  everything  which  will  serve  as  such  a  means  a  true  good.2  The 
highest  good  is  that  a  man  should  arrive,  together  with  other  indi- 
viduals if  possible,  at  the  possession  of  this  character.3  And  now 
comes  Spinoza's  statement  of  what  this  character  is,  a  statement  which, 
in  virtue  of  its   formulation  in  intellectual  terms,  opens  the  way  to  a 

Il'Assidua  autem  meditatione  eo  perveni,  ut  viderem,  quod  turn,  modo  possem  penitus  deliberare, 
mala  certa  pro  bono  certo  omitterem.  Videbam  enim  me  in  summo  versari  periculo,  et  me  cogi,  reme- 
dium,  quamvis  incertum,  summis  viribus  quaerere ;  veluti  aeger  lethali  morbo  laborans,  qui  ubi  mortem 
certam  praevidet  ni  adhibeatur  remedium,  illud  ipsum,  quamvis  incertum,  summis  viribus  cogitur 
quaerere,  nempe  in  eo  tota  ejus  spes  est  sita."     (Trac.  de  Intell.  Em,,  p.  4.) 

2"Incitatur  ad  media  quaerendum,  quae  ipsum  ad  talem  ducant  perfectionem:  et  omne  illud,  quod 
potest  esse  medium,  ut  eo  perveniat,  vocatur  verum  bonum."     {Ibid,,  p.  6.) 

3"  Summum  autem  bonum  est  eo  pervenire,  ut  ille  cum  aliis  individuis,  si  fieri  potest,  tali  natura 
fruatur."     (Ibid.) 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  II 

logic,  to  an  account  of  the  means  for  attaining  the  end.  This  char- 
acter, Spinoza  says,  is  the  knowledge  of  the  union  existing  between 
the  mind  and  the  whole  of  nature.1 

This,  then,  is  the  end  for  which  I  strive,  to  attain  such  a  character  myself, 
and  to  endeavor  that  many  should  attain  to  it  with  me.  In  other  words,  it  is 
a  part  of  my  happiness  to  lend  a  helping  hand,  that  many  others  may  under- 
stand even  as  I  do,  so  that  their  understanding  and  desire  may  entirely  agree 
with  my  own.2 

SEC.    III.       THE    MEANS    FOR    ATTAINING    THE    END. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  make  a  very  systematic  statement  under  this 
heading,  for  fear  of  forcing  an  interpretation  of  Spinoza's  philosophy. 
One  of  the  most  significant  features  of  that  philosophy  is  that  it  does 
not  differentiate  to  any  considerable  extent  between  logical,  psycho- 
logical, and  ethical  categories.  Chiefly  for  the  sake  of  convenience, 
then,  as  the  field  to  be  covered  is  exceedingly  broad  and  diversified,  I 
will  partition  it,  with  reference  to  the  treatment  of  the  imagination 
involved,  into  — 

I.  The  Tractatus  de  Intellectus  Emendatione,  which  works  out  a 
logical  method  ; 

II.  The  Tractatus  Theologico-Polilicus,  in  which  the  theory  of  the 
imagination  is  effectively  applied,  and  at  the  same  time  is  much  more 
fully  developed  ;  and 

III.  The  Ethica,  where  further  developments  of  the  theory  of  the 
imagination  are  to  be  noted,  especially  on  the  more  distinctively 
psychological  and  ethical  sides. 

I.    Tractatus  de  Intellectus  Eme/idatione. 

Spinoza  first  pointed  out  that,  in  order  to  attain  the  ideal  character, 
which  is  a  unity  of  self  with  the  whole  of  nature,  it  is  essential  both  to 
understand  and  to  form  a  social  order  such  as  is  most  conducive  to  the 
attainment  of  this  character  by  the  greatest  number  with  the  least 
difficulty  and  danger.  He  then  enumerates  the  following  somewhat 
more  specific  measures  :  Moral  philosophy,  and  the  sciences  of  edu- 
cation, of  medicine,  and  of  mechanics.  "But  before  all  things,"  he 
continues,  "a  means  must  be  devised  for  improving  the  understanding 
and  purifying  it,  as  far  as  may  be  at  the  outset,  so  that  it  may  appre- 
hend things  without  error,  and  in   the  best  possible  way."     In  other 

1 "  Quaenam  autem  ilia  fit  natura  ostendemus  suo  loco,  nimirum  esse  cognitionem  unionis,  quam 
mens  cum  tota  Natura  habet."     {Ibid.) 

2 "Hie  est  itaque  fines,  ad  quem  tendo,  talem  scilicet  naturam  acquirere,  et,  ut  multi  mecum  earn 
acquirant,  conari;  hoc  est,  de  mea  felicitate  etiam  est  operam  dare,  ut  alii  multi  idem  atque  ego  intel- 
ligant,  ut  eorum  intellectus  et  cupiditas  prorsus  cum  meo  intellectu  et  cupiditate  conveniant."     (Ibid.) 


12  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

words,  it  is  a  logic  that  Spinoza  seeks  to  develop  as  the  first  and  funda- 
mental means  of  controlling  science  and  thus  arriving  at  the  ideal. 
To  this  task  alone  Spinoza  addresses  himself  in  the  rest  of  the  Tracta- 
tes de  Intellectus  Emendatione,  and  with  it  emerges  his  conscious  logical 
method  as  distinguished  from  the  larger  logic  of  the  situation,  which 
I  have  attempted  to  follow  up  to  this  point. 

What  might  fairly  be  called  his  logical  theory  falls  into  two  main 
divisions.  The  first  of  these  divisions  corresponds  pretty  closely  to 
the  larger  logic  of  the  situation,  which  I  have  just  referred  to,  and 
leans  toward  a  genetic  view  of  logical  processes.  The  second  is 
devoted  to  logic  or  method  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term  —  that  is, 
logic  as  a  body  of  rules.  I  will  try  to  state  his  position  far  enough  to 
make  it  clear  where  the  treatment  of  imagination  enters  and  plays  its 
part.  Under  the  first  division,  Spinoza  discriminates  three  stages : 
(i)  The  end,  to  which  we  wish  to  direct  all  our  thoughts.  ("  Habuimus 
hujusque  primo  Finem,  ad  quern  omnes  nostras  cogitationes  dirigere 
studemus,"  p.  15.)  (2)  The  mode  of  perception  best  adapted  to 
attaining  the  end;  corresponding,  I  believe,  to  what  we  should  call  the 
most  effective  attitude  of  mind.  (3)  The  discovery  of  the  best  way  to 
begin,  namely,  the  use  of  every  true  idea  as  a  standard.  This  corre- 
sponds in  a  way  to  what  we  should  term  the  discovery  of  a  working 
hypothesis,  though  for  Spinoza  there  was  absolutely  nothing  of  a  hypo- 
thetical character  about  the  true  idea. 

I  will  state  more  fully  what  Spinoza  means  by  the  standard  idea, 
because  it  is  in  connection  with  the  methods  of  determining  it  that  the 
treatment  of  the  imagination  emerges.  The  standard  idea  is  its  own 
test  of  truth,  because  it  is  an  instrument  created  by  the  native  strength 
of  the  intellect.  There  is  no  test  of  truth  for  the  intellect  extrinsic  or 
back  of  itself.  A  regressus  ad  infinitum  is  out  of  the  question.  "In 
order  to  know,  there  is  no  need  to  know  that  we  know,  much  less  to 
know  that  we  know  that  we  know  ....  for,  in  order  to  know  that  I 
know,  I  must  first  know."  Spinoza's  famous  hammer  illustration  comes 
in  here  :  "  It  would  be  as  foolish  to  argue  that  men  have  no  power  of 
working  iron  because  they  must  use  a  hammer,  which  in  turn  must 
have  been  made  by  another  hammer,  and  that  by  another  or  by  other 
tools,  and  so  on  to  infinity,  as  it  would  be  to  argue  that  the  mind 
could  not  know  truth  as  truth."  And  again:  "The  reality  of  true 
thought  does  not  acknowledge  the  object  as  its  cause,  but  must  depend 
on  the  actual  power  and  nature  of  the  understanding."  Furthermore, 
not  only  does  a  true  idea  necessarily  first  of  all  exist  in  us  as  a  natural 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  13 

instrument,  "but  it  is  absolutely  correlative  with  its  physical  object;" 
this  is,  of  course,  a  fundamental  assumption  with  Spinoza. 

Under  the  second  division,  Spinoza  states  his  more  specific  prin- 
ciples of'  logic  : 

1.  The  means  of  distinguishing  a  true  idea  from  all  other  percep- 
tions. 

2.  Rules  for  perceiving  unknown  things  according  to  the  standard 
of  the  true  idea.  We  might  be  led  to  suspect  that  Spinoza  had  antici- 
pated what  in  principle  corresponds  to  the  technique  of  modern 
laboratory  procedure,  but  he  confined  himself  to  a  warning  against 
"confounding  what  is  only  in  the  understanding  with  that  which  is  in 
the  thing  itself,"  and  to  a  discussion  of  the  conditions  to  be  met  in 
framing  a  good  definition. 

3.  An  order  which  enables  us  to  avoid  useless  labor  (this  corre- 
sponds to  classification). 

4.  The  perfection  of  method,  which  would  be  when  we  had  attained 
to  the  idea  of  the  absolutely  perfect  being.  "This  is  an  observation 
which  should  be  made  at  the  outset,  in  order  that  we  may  arrive  at  the 
knowledge  of  such  a  being  more  quickly." 

The  treatment  of  the  imagination  becomes  immediately  involved 
only  in  the  discussion  of  the  first  of  these  four  principles,  namely,  the 
means  of  distinguishing  a  true  idea  from  all  other  perceptions. 

Should  the  reader  raise  the  question,  "  Why  did  Spinoza  need  to 
propose  means  of  distinguishing  a  true  idea  from  all  other  perceptions, 
after  the  true  idea  had  been  declared  to  be  its  own  witness  of  its  truth?  " 
an  answer  will  be  found  in  what  Spinoza  has  to  say  concerning  the 
validity  of  reasoning  about  the  test  of  truth  itself.  He  admits  that,  if 
"by  some  happy  chance"  anyone  had  stumbled  upon  the  true  idea, 
"  in  his  investigations  of  nature,"  that  is,  if  he  had  acquired  new  ideas 
in  the  proper  order,  according  to  the  standard  of  the  original  true 
idea,  he  would  never  have  doubted  the  truth  of  his  knowledge,  "inas- 
much as  truth,  as  we  have  shown,  makes  itself  manifest,  and  all  things 
would  flow,  as  it  were,  spontaneously  toward  him."  But  this  rarely  or 
never  happens,  Spinoza  continues.  This  order  of  thinking,  though 
"  adopted  by  men  in  their  inward  meditations,"  is  rarely  employed  in 
investigation  of  nature,  because  of  current  misconception,  because  it 
demands  keen  and  accurate  discernment,  and,  lastly,  because  "  it  is 
hindered  by  conditions  of  human  life,  which  are,  as  we  have  already 
pointed  out,  extremely  changeable."  I  have  quoted  this  partly  for 
the  sake  of  showing  in  what  form  the  original  problem  persists.     It  is 


14  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

at  this  particular  point  that  the  treatment  of  the  imagination  becomes 
explicit. 

There  are  three  types  of  ideas  which  the  mind,  according  to 
Spinoza,  must  be  kept  from  confusing  with  true  ideas.  These  three 
types  are  :  fictitious,  false,  and  doubtful  ideas.  All  of  these  originate  in 
the  imagination,  "that  is,  in  certain  sensations  fortuitous  (so  to  speak) 
and  disconnected,  arising,  not  from  the  power  of  the  mind,  but  from 
external  causes,  according  as  the  body,  sleeping  or  waking,  receives 
various  motions." 

Spinoza  perceives  that  he  has  appeared  to  beg  the  question,  and 
requests  that  no  one  be  astonished  that  "before  proving  the  existence 
of  body  and  other  necessary  things  he  has  spoken  of  the  imagination 
of  the  body  and  of  its  composition."  The  view  taken  is  immaterial,  he 
continues,  so  long  as  we  know  that  the  imagination  is  something  indefi- 
nite, that  it  is  essentially  different  from  the  understanding,  that  the 
mind  with  regard  to  it  is  passive. 

We  can  know  "the  true  idea  because  it  is  simple  or  compounded 
of  simple  ideas,"  because  it  is  clear  and  distinct.  But  a  "fictitious 
idea"  cannot  be  clear  and  distinct.  It  is  necessarily  confused, 
"because  the  mind  has  only  a  partial  knowledge  of  the  object,  and 
does  not  distinguish  between  the  known  and  the  unknown,  and 
because  it  directs  its  attention  promiscuously  to  all  parts  of  the  object 
at  once  without  making  distinctions."  "  Fiction  never  creates  or  fur- 
nishes the  mind  with  anything  new;  only  such  things  as  are  already  in 
the  brain  or  imagination  are  recalled  to  the  memory,  when  the  atten- 
tion is  directed  to  them  confusedly  and  all  at  once."  The  mind  in 
imagination  is  at  the  mercy  of  its  world.  Chance  associations  rule. 
'  For  instance,  we  have  remembrance  of  spoken  words  and  of  a  tree  ; 
when  the  mind  directs  itself  to  them  confusedly,  it  forms  the  notion  of 
a  tree  speaking."  Again,  we  can  know  a  true  idea  because  it  shows 
how  and  why  something  is  or  has  been  made.  Imagination  introduces 
the  irrelevant.  "If  an  architect  conceives  a  building  properly  con- 
structed, though  such  a  building  may  never  have  existed,  and  may 
never  exist,  nevertheless  the  idea  is  true  ;  and  the  idea  remains  true  the 
same  whether  it  be  put  into  execution  or  not."  But  imagination 
asserts,  not  the  essence,  but  the  existence,  of  a  building — to  adapt 
Spinoza's  illustration  —  without  knowing  whether  the  building  really 
exists  or  not.  So  the  true  idea  of  a  sphere  is  the  concept  of  its  con- 
struction by  means  of  the  revolution  of  a  semicircle  on  the  diameter. 
But  imagination  affirms  something  not  contained  in  such  a  concept,  as 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  15 

motion  or  rest  of  the  semicircle  apart  from  the  relation  of  a  semicircle 
to  the  production  of  a  sphere. 

When  the  imagination  and  the  understanding,  or  the  perception  of 
true  ideas,  appear  to  be  associated,  the  danger  is  especially  great,  giving 
rise  to  complete  deception.  This  occurs  when  certain  things  presented 
to  the  imagination  also  exist  in  the  understanding.  Then  true  and 
false  ideas  become  confused.  Spinoza  instances  the  Stoics,  who 
"heard  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  yet  imagined  it  only  confusedly; 
they  imagined,  also,  and  understood  that  very  subtle  bodies  penetrate 
all  others,  and  are  penetrated  by  none.  By  combining  these  ideas,  and 
being  at  the  same  time  certain  of  the  truth  of  the  axiom,  they  forthwith 
became  convinced  that  the  mind  consists  of  very  subtle  bodies;  that  these 
very  subtle  bodies  cannot  be  divided,  etc.  But  we  are  freed  from  mistakes 
of  this  kind,  so  long  as  we  endeavor  to  examine  all  our  perceptions  by 
the  standard  of  a  given  true  idea."  In  another,  though  similar,  way 
we  confuse  the  intellect  and  the  imagination.  We  think  that  what  we 
more  readily  imagine  is  clearer  to  us  ;  that  what  we  imagine,  that  we 
understand.  Thus  we  violate  the  true  deductive  method,  "the  true 
order  of  progression" — putting  first  what  should  be  last. 

There  are  other  grave  errors  arising  through  not  distinguishing 
accurately  between  the  imagination  and  the  understanding:  such  as 
"believing  that  extension  must  be  localized;  that  it  must  be  finite;  that 
its  parts  are  really  distinct  one  from  the  other;  that  it  is  the  primary 
and  single  foundation  of  all  things;  that  it  occupies  more  space  at  one 
time  than  any  other;  and  other  similar  doctrines,  all  entirely  opposed 
to  the  truth,  as  we  shall  duly  show." 

Finally,  an  idea  is  stated,  though  not  developed  very  far,  in  this 
tractatus,  which  is  one  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  Spinozistic  phi- 
losophy. The  imagination  is  affected  only  by  "  particular,  physical 
objects,  and  thus  perceives  things  in  a  determinate  number,  duration, 
and  quantity; "  whereas  the  understanding  perceives  things  not  so 
much  under  "the  condition  of  duration  as  under  a  certain  form  of 
eternity  and  in  an  infinite  number." 

To  put  the  substance  of  the  matter  in  a  sentence  or  two  :  The 
theory  of  the  imagination  furnishes  a  negative  test  of  the  standard 
idea.  Let  no  trace  of  the  imagination  be  found  in  it.  Let  no  influ- 
ence from  any  external  and  particular  object  or  time  contaminate  it. 
Let  no  confusion  enter  into  it  from  without  through  the  gates  of 
sleeping-awake  —  for  error  is  the  dreaming  of  a  waking  man.  "Error 
autem  est  vigilando  sominare."     Let  the  standard  idea  be  the  instru- 


1 6  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

ment  created  solely  "per  vim  nativam"  of  the  mind  itself  working 
according  to  fixed  and  eternal  laws,  the  fulfilment  of  which  is  freedom. 

Assuming  that  we  now  have  before  us  a  fairly  complete  statement 
of  the  theory  of  the  imagination  as  it  is  worked  out  in  the  Tractatus  de 
Intellectus  Emendatione,  the  true  critical  question  that  arises  is:  To  what 
extent  will  it  be  found  a  useful  means  in  attaining  the  end  proposed, 
in  solving  the  original  problem  ?  Recall  the  nature  of  that  problem — 
the  fleeting,  perishable,  finite  character  of  the  commonly  accepted 
goods  of  this  life;  the  sham,  the  self-deception  of  it  all.  What  has 
Spinoza  done  save  to  identify  this  problem  with  the  nature  of  the 
imagination,  and  then  by  rejecting  the  imagination  to  get  rid  of  the 
problem — a  solution  by  exclusion,  by  excommunication?  Infinitely 
more  !  it  will  be  said.  Has  he  not  pointed  out  the  way  to  the  goal  — 
the  formation  of  that  perfect  character  which  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
unity  of  itself  with  the  whole  of  nature  —  by  showing  how  the  indi- 
vidual himself,  any  individual  who  thinks,  is  by  virtue  of  the  very  act 
of  thought  a  creator  of  the  instruments  of  truth  with  which  to  attain 
the  goal?  True,  all  this  may  have  been  won  for  the  individual  —  but 
only  at  the  cost  of  the  essence  of  individuality  itself.  All  spontaneity, 
all  initiative,  all  variability,  all  progress  is  ruled  out.  "For  the  soul," 
Spinoza  says,  "acts  according  to  fixed  laws  and  is,  as  it  were,  an 
immaterial  automaton."1 

II.    The  Tractatus  Theologico-  Politicus . 

The  object  of  the  Tractatus  Theologico- Politicus  is  closely  related  to 
the  general  problem,  because  it  aims  to  secure  perfect  freedom  in  carry- 
ing out  the  solution  of  the  problem  —  freedom  to  think.  The  theory 
of  the  imagination  worked  out  in  this  tractatus  is  one  of  the  instru- 
ments with  which  to  eliminate  conflicting  elements  from  the  situation. 
In  its  application  it  receives  further  development  and  definition. 

It  is  possible  to  overemphasize  the  influence  on  Spinoza's  life  and 
thought  of  his  excommunication.  "This  compels  me,"  he  is  reported 
to  have  said  on  receiving  the  news,  "to  nothing  which  I  should  not 
otherwise  have  done."  (Pollock,  Life  of  Spinoza,  p.  19.)  Nevertheless, 
the  excommunication  has  an  important  significance,  in  that  it  was  an 
overt  expression  of  a  deep-seated  conflict  between  the  old  and  the  new, 
between  sacred  tradition  and  ritual,  and  the  spirit  of  growing  scientific 

1  "At  ideam  veram  simplicem  esse  ostendimus,  aut  ex  simplicibus  compositam,  ut  quae  ostendit,  quo- 
modo  et  cur  aliquid  fit  aut  factum  sit,  et  quod  ipsius  effectus  objectivi  in  anima  procedunt  ad  rationem 
formalitatis  ipsius  objecti ;  id  quod  idem  est,  quod  veteres  dixerunt,  nerape  veram  scientiam  procedere  a 
causa  ad  effectus  ;  nisi  quod  nunquam,  quod  sciam,  conceperunt,uti  nos  hie,  anitnam  secundum 
certas  leges  ageniem,  et  quasi  aliquod  automa  spirituale"  (Italics  mine.)  ( Trac.  de  Intel!.  Em., 
p.  29.) 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  17 

thought  and  political  freedom.  Spinoza  was  not  indifferent  to  this  con- 
flict. His  principal  works,  particularly  this  tractatus,  show  that  he  was 
keenly  alive  to  it. 

This  conflict  finds  here  its  most  concentrated  expression  in  the 
separation  of  theology  from  philosophy,  of  obedience  from  freedom  to 
think.  The  separation  is  explained  and  justified,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  by  means  of  an  analysis  of  the  gift  and  function  of  prophecy, 
and  by  a  psychological  distinction  between  the  imagination  and  the 
understanding,  developing  with  the  analysis  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
trolling it. 

The  analysis  of  the  gift  and  function  of  prophecy,  which  occupies 
the  first  two  chapters  of  the  tractatus,  follows  two  somewhat  different 
lines  of  argument,  and  brings  out  clearly  two  different  aspects  of  the 
imagination.  A  comparison  of  the  introductory  sentences  of  each 
chapter  will  serve  as  a  statement  of  the  contrast,  and  will  also  set  before 
us  (a)  the  definition  from  which  the  first  line  of  argument  proceeds,  and 
(6)  the  conclusion  which  the  second  line  of  argument  aims  to  support 
by  empirical  data  : 

Prophecy,  or  revelation,  is  a  sure  knowledge  revealed  by  God  to  man. 
A  prophet  is  one  who  interprets  the  revelations  of  God  to  those  who  are 
unable  to  attain  to  sure  knowledge  of  the  matters  revealed,  and  therefore 
can  only  apprehend  them  by  simple  faith.1 

It  follows  from  the  last  chapter  that,  as  I  have  said,  the  prophets  were 
endowed  with  unusually  vivid  imaginations,  and  not  with  unusually  perfect 
minds.2 

(a)  A  theory  of  the  imagination  becomes  involved  in  the  first  of 
these  two  lines  of  argument  as  soon  as  the  principle  is  laid  down  that  the 
imagination  is  one  of  the  three  ways  in  which  certa  cognitio  was  revealed 
by  God  to  man  in  the  Scriptures,  the  other  two  being  the  vera  vox  that 
spoke  to  Moses,  and  the  immediate  communion  of  Christ  with  God  — 
mind  to  mind.  To  be  sure,  Spinoza  expressly  states  that  the  ordinary 
knowledge  which  we  acquire  by  our  natural  faculties  depends  upon  our 
knowledge  of  God  and  his  eternal  laws ;  that  the  feeling  of  intellectual 
certainty  is  of  the  nature  of  a  divine  revelation — an  idea  elaborated 
in  Chap.  IV,  and  destined  to  be  of  transcendent  importance  in  the 
Ethics.     But  with  reference  to  prophecy,  in  all  instances,  save  those  of 

1 "  Prophetia  sive  Revelatio  est  rei  alicujus  certa  cognitio  a  Deo  hominibus  revelata.  Propheta  autem 
is  est,  qui  Dei  revelata  iis  interpretatur,  qui  rerum  a  Deo  revelatarum  certam  cognitionem  habere  nequeunt, 
quique  adeo  mera  fide  res  revelatas  amplecti  tantum  possum."     (Cap.  i.) 

2 "Ex  superiore  Capite,  ut  jam  iudicavimus,  sequitur,  Prophetas  non  fuisse  perfectiore  mente 
praeditos,  sed  quidem  potentia  vividius  imaginandi,  quod  Scripturae  narrationes  abunde  etiam  docent." 
(Cap.  ii.) 


1 8  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

Moses  and  of  Christ,  the  imagination  is  the  sole  instrument  of  divine 
revelation.  Toward  the  close  of  the  argument  the  deepest  significance 
attaching  to  this  instrument  is  made  to  depend  on  a  quatenus,  which  in 
turn  involves  the  moral  character  and  peculiar  power  of  the  prophets, 
and  finally  depends  upon  the  nature  of  a  prophecy,  as  defined  in  the 
first  paragraph  of  the  chapter,  quoted  above,  thus  completing  the  circle 
and  identifying  imagination  with  the  mind  of  God.  More  in  detail, 
Spinoza  enters  upon  a  full  discussion  of  the  various  meanings  of  the 
Hebrew  word  for  "  spirit,"  with  the  end  in  view  of  determining  the  rela- 
tion between  spirit  and  prophecy,  as  illustrated  in  such  scriptural 
phrases  as  :  "  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  was  upon  a  prophet,"  "  The 
Lord  breathed  his  spirit  into  men,"  "Men  were  filled  with  the  spirit 
of  God,  with  the  Holy  Spirit,"  etc.  Such  phrases  mean,  he  concludes, 
"that  prophets  were  endowed  with  peculiar  and  extraordinary  power, 
and  devoted  themselves  to  piety  with  a  special  constancy;  that  thus 
they  perceived  the  mind  or  thought  of  God;  for  it  has  been  shown 
that  God's  spirit  signifies  in  Hebrew  God's  mind  or  thought,  and 
that  the  law  which  shows  his  mind  and  thought  is  called  his  spirit; 
hence  the  imagination  of  the  prophet,  in  so  far  as  {quatenus)  through 
it  were  revealed  the  degrees  of  God,  may  equally  be  called  the  mind  of 
God,  and  the  prophets  be  said  to  have  possessed  the  mind  of  God."1 
Quatenus,  if  it  reduces  the  possibility  of  divine  revelation  to  zero, 
makes  the  original  definition  of  prophecy  a  mere  form  of  words  for 
a  thing  that  has  never  existed.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  has  been 
such  a  thing  as  prophecy  in  the  scriptural  sense — -and  Spinoza  never 
goes  so  far  as  to  express  a  doubt  of  this  assumption  —  then  "  in  so  far," 
quatenus,  the  imagination  of  the  prophets  and  the  mind  of  God  were 
one. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  in  the  paragraph  immediately  following  this 
part  of  the  discussion,  Spinoza  confesses  his  ignorance  of  the  particu- 
lar way  in  which  communication  between  the  mind  of  God  and  the 
imagination  of  the  prophet  was  effected,  and  declares  the  irrelevancy 
of  any  attempt  at  explanation. 

(b)  The  second  line  of  argument  develops  and  endeavors  to  sub- 
stantiate by  evidence  drawn  from  the  Scriptures,  and  by  an  appeal  to 

i "Nihil  enim  aliud  significant,  quam  quod  Prophetae  virtutem  singularem  et  supra  communem 
habebant,  quodque  pietatem  eximia  animi  constantia  colebant.  Deinde,  quod  Dei  mentem  sive  senten- 
tiam  pcrcipiebant ;  ostendimus  enim,  Spiritum  Hebraice  significare  tam  mentem  quam  mentis  sententiam, 
et  hac  de  causa  ipsam  Legem,  quia  Dei  mentem  explicabat,  Spiritum  sive  mentem  Dei  vocari ;  quare 
aequali  jure  imaginatio  Prophetarum,  quatenus  per  earn  Dei  decreta  revelabantur,  mens  Dei  etiam 
vocari  poterat,  Prophetaeque  mentem  Dei  habuissedici  poterant."  (Italics  mine.)  {Trac.  Theol-Pol., 
cap.  i,  p.  390.) 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  19 

common  experience,  the  contrast  between  imagination  and  reason 
implied  in  the  first  sentence  in  Chap.  II,  quoted  on  p.  17.  The  most 
significant  feature  of  the  argument  —  a  feature  which  not  only  antici- 
pates the  contrast  between  inadequate  and  adequate  ideas  in  the 
Ethics,  but  also  touches  the  core  of  Spinoza's  philosophic  method  —  is 
the  nature  of  the  distinction  between  the  imagination  and  the  under- 
standing. It  is  a  distinction  between  particulars  and  the  universal ; 
between  particulars  as  expressed  in  terms  of  opinions,  biases,  mental 
images  —  in  short,  the  capacities  of  the  private,  subjective  individual 
as  such — and  the  universal  as  it  necessarily  follows  from  the  nature  of 
the  thing  perceived  or  seen.  Out  of  this  distinction  grows  on  the 
logical  side  a  distinction  between  two  kinds  of  certitude,  two  kinds 
of  validity — moral  and  mathematical.  One  line  of  certitude,  the  kind 
which  the  prophet  experienced,  is  afforded  by  signs  extrinsic  to  the 
revelation  itself :  "  Simplex  imaginatio  non  involvat  ex  sua  natura  certi- 
tudinem."  Instances  are  given  of  the  verification  of  prophecy  by 
signs,  which  show  "  Prophetas  semper  signum  aliquod  habuisse,  quo 
certi  fiebant  de  rebus,  quas  Prophetice  imaginabantur."  (This  state- 
ment is  subsequently  qualified  :  "  Praeterea  concedere  possumus, 
Prophetas,  qui  nihil  novi,  nisi  quod  in  Lege  Mosis  continentur,  pro- 
phetabant,  non  indignisse  signo,  quia  ex  Lege  confirmabantur.")  The 
important  point  is  that  both  sign  and  revelation  varied  according  to 
the  capacity  and  disposition  of  the  individual.  Numerous  examples 
are  given  of  the  ways  in  which  revelations  may  vary  according  to  the 
mood,  culture,  and  ideas  of  the  individual  prophets.  Yet,  differing  as 
widely  as  they  may  in  all  these  respects,  there  is  one  trait  that  true 
prophets  share  in  common  —  high  moral  character.  This  affords  the 
surest  guarantee  of  certainty.  "  Nam  Deus  pios  et  electos  numquam 
decipit."  To  give  Spinoza's  summary  of  the  discussion  with  reference 
to  the  criteria  of  prophecy: 

The  whole  question  of  the  certitude  of  prophecy  was  based  on  these  three 
considerations  : 

1.  That  the  things  revealed  were  imagined  very  vividly,  affecting  the 
prophets  in  the  same  way  as  things  seen  when  awake. 

2.  The  presence  of  a  sign. 

3.  Lastly  and  chiefly,  that  the  mind  of  the  prophet  was  given  wholly  to 
what  was  right  and  good.  (Chap,  II.  This  summary  is  repeated  and 
expounded  further  in  Chap.  XV.) 

Set  over  against  prophetic  certainty,  or  moral  certainty,  is  mathe- 
matical certainty.     The  nature  of   this  kind  of  certainty  is  intrinsic 


20  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

and  deductive,  self-involved  and  self-evolving.  "  Prophetica  igitur 
hac  in  re  naturali  cedit  cognitioni,  quae  nullo  indiget  signo,  sed  ex 
sua  natura  certitudinem  involvit"  (p.  393).  The  distinction  between 
the  two  kinds  of  certitude  is  imbedded  in  a  remarkable  sentence,  which 
may  be  quoted  as  a  summary  of  the  principal  points  brought  out  thus 
far: 

As,  then,  the  certitude  afforded  to  the  prophets  by  signs  was  not  mathe- 
matical (z.  e.,  did  not  follow  necessarily  from  the  perception  of  the 
thing  perceived  or  seen),  but  only  moral,  and  as  the  signs  were  only  given 
to  convince  the  prophet,  it  follows  that  such  signs  were  given  according  to 
the  opinions  and  capacity  of  each  prophet,  so  that  a  sign  which  would  con- 
vince one  prophet  would  fall  far  short  of  convincing  another  who  was  imbued 
with  different  opinions.  Therefore  the  signs  varied  according  to  the  indi- 
vidual prophet.     (Chap.  II,  E,  p.  29,  and  L,  p.  393.) 

From  this  discussion  of  the  first  two  chapters  of  the  tractatus, 
involving  points  which,  as  Spinoza  states  at  the  close  of  the  second 
chapter,  are  the  only  ones  bearing  on  the  end  in  view,  namely,  "  ad 
separandam  Philosophiam  a  Theologia,"  it  is  evident  that  we  have  to 
consider,  on  the  one  hand,  two  aspects  of  the  imagination,  two  apparently 
irreconcilable  aspects  :  (1)  imagination  as  the  sole  instrument  of  the 
divine  revelation  of  sure  knowledge,  certa  cognitio,  in  all  prophecy 
(save  in  the  case  of  Moses  and  of  Christ),  as  one  with  the  mind  of  God  ; 
and  (2)  as  a  particular,  in  the  sense  of  private,  variable,  subjective, 
partial,  embodiment  of  moral  law.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  to 
consider  understanding,  intellectus  "  claris  et  distincta  idea,"  which 
is  its  own  witness  of  the  truth.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  there  can  be 
any  opposition  between  the  first  aspect  of  imagination  and  the  under- 
standing. It  is  also  difficult  to  see  how  it  is  any  easier  to  reconcile 
the  two  aspects  of  imagination  with  each  other  than  it  is  to  reconcile 
the  second  aspect  with  the  understanding  itself.  In  short,  the  analysis 
gives  us  a  two-faced  imagination  versus  the  understanding  or  intellectus. 

But  this  is  not  the  place  and  time  for  a  criticism  as  to  logical  con- 
sistency. Return  we  first  to  the  problem  itself  and  see  how  far  the 
results  of  Spinoza's  psychological  and  logical  analysis  will  meet  the 
situation  successfully.  Tradition,  based  on  prophetic  revelation,  is  at 
war  with  growing  scientific  and  speculative  thought.  The  conflict  con- 
stitutes the  problem.  What  Spinoza  proposes  as  a  solution  is  a  cessa- 
tion of  hostilities.  He  aims  to  define  the  province  of  each,  so  that 
each  must  remain  within  its  own,  and  so  that  there  will  be.  no  future 
possibility   of  conflict.     To  theology  he  assigns  far  the  larger  area  — 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  21 

practically  the  whole  of  moral  education  and  spiritual  guidance.  The- 
ology is  given  jurisdiction  over  the  many-headed  multitude,  over  those 
who  are  untrained  in  "  the  deduction  of  conclusions  from  general  truths 
a  priori"  and  who  "seek  each  for  himself  his  own  selfish  interests,  with 
no  thought  beyond  the  present  and  the  immediate  object."  To  them 
theology  or  religion  —  both  as  worship  and  as  exponent  of  the  highest 
moral  law  —  can  make  its  appeal,  not  in  the  form  of  reasoning  deduct- 
ively from  axioms  and  definitions,  but  only  in  terms  of  concrete 
human  experiences.  The  law  must  be  incarnated  in  particulars  so 
vivid  and  personal  that  it  becomes  a  living  reality  to  him  whose  mind 
cannot  grasp  a  clear  and  distinct  generalization.  The  law  can  be 
effective  only  as  it  becomes  some  particular  fragment  of  the  individ- 
ual's fragmentary  life.  Hence  the  function  of  prophecy  was  the  func- 
tion of  adapting  the  universal  moral  law  and  will  of  God  to  the  clouded 
and  finite  intelligences  of  the  vast  majority  of  humankind.  "  Pro- 
pheta  autem  is  est,  qui  Dei  revelata  iis  interpretatur,  qui  rerum  a  Deo 
revelatarum  certam  cognitionem  habere  nequeunt,  quique  adeo  mera 
fide  res  revelatas  amplecti  tantum  possunt."  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
state  that  according  to  Spinoza  the  function  of  prophecy  and  of  the- 
ology was  not  to  promote  religious  ecstasy;  its  function  was  social, 
moral  —  to  effect  through  obedience  to  the  law,  as  felt  by  the  individ- 
ual, a  secure  and  permanent  organization  of  society.  Of  especial  sig- 
nificance in  this  connection  are  the  chapters  on  the  vocation  of  the 
Hebrews,  and  the  Hebrew  theocracy,  which  declare  that  vocation  to 
have  been  a  monopoly  neither  on  virtue  nor  on  intelligence,  but  the 
establishment  of  a  highly  perfected  and  long-enduring  social  organiza- 
tion, in  which  religious,  moral,  and  political  control  was  one  in  the 
spirit  of  reverent  and  joyful  obedience  to  laws  divinely  revealed. 

To  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  Spinoza  assigns  the  narrow  ter- 
ritory of  the  deductive  or  mathematical  method  of  developing  the 
divine  law  from  clear  and  distinct  ideas  —  narrow,  because  this  rational 
insight  into  the  divine  nature  of  things  is  the  blessed  possibility  of 
only  a  few.     It,  too,  however,  leads  to  salvation. 

Even  he  who  should  be  ignorant  of  Scripture  narratives,  but  who  should 
know  by  natural  reason  {famine  naturale)  that  God  exists,  and  who  should 
have  a  true  plan  of  life,  would  be  altogether  blessed  —  yes,  more  blessed  than 
the  common  herd  of  believers,  because  besides  true  opinion  he  would  possess 
also  true  and  distinct  ideas. 

It  was  most  essential,  however,  not  merely  to  assign  different  prov- 
inces to  theology  and  philosophy,  but  to  establish  boundary  lines  that 


2  2  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

could  never  be  infringed  upon  ;  to  show  how  the  two  could  never 
again,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  at  war  with  one  another.  There 
were  three  instruments  with  which  Spinoza  endeavored  to  bring  this 
about :  (i)  a  theory  of  the  imagination,  (2)  historical-biblical  criticism, 
(3)  a  theory  of  the  state.  It  would  be  difficult,  perhaps  irrelevant,  to 
decide  which  of  the  three  was  of  the  most  fundamental  importance. 
All  I  shall  attempt  to  do  is  to  point  out  the  function  of  the  first, 
namely,  of  the  theory  of  the  imagination.  The  divinely  revealed 
subject-matter  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  only  subject-matter  and  body 
of  doctrine,  according  to  Spinoza,  that  theology  can  have  ;  for  it  is 
doubtful  whether  there  have  been  any  latter-day  prophets.  That  sub- 
ject-matter was  given  and  retained  solely  in  terms  of  the  imagination 
(excepting,  always,  in  the  case  of  Moses  and  of  Christ).  To  speak 
more  explicitly,  that  subject-matter  was  given  and  retained  in  terms  of 
private,  individual  imaginations,  flatly  contradicting  one  another  in 
mood,  in  training,  and  in  matters  of  rational  knowledge  and  belief. 
Therefore,  the  content  of  theology  is  embodied  in  individualistic  terms, 
and  is  partial,  variable,  beclouded,  and  wayward.  There  is  moral  agree- 
ment between  the  particular,  individualistic  terms,  a  practical  social  unity 
to  which  they  contribute,  but  no  necessary  intellectual  agreement,  no 
rational  unity.  The  imagination  is  so  arbitrary,  so  subjective,  so  par- 
tial—  in  both  senses  of  the  word — that  it  acquired  certitude,  validity,  in 
prophecy,  only  through  the  presence  of  an  objective,  corroborating  sign 
or  witness.  And  even  this  sign  or  witness  was  not  purely  objective  and 
rational,  but  varied  with  the  character  of  the  individual  prophet.  The 
very  nature  of  the  imagination,  and  the  very  nature  of  the  unrational- 
ized  individual  who  exercised  it  in  prophecy,  determine  in  themselves 
—  or  in  itself,  for  both  are  one  —  the  limits  of  theology.  Beyond  its 
particular  and  concrete  content  theology  cannot  logically  pass.  Its 
law  was  given  by  revelation,  not  derived  by  reason.  Its  law  was  revealed 
unto  the  flesh,  not  born  of  the  spirit.  Theology  can  read  its  data  back- 
ward, but  not  forward  —  backward  to  the  source,  but  not  forward  to  a 
new  generalization.  Contradictory  particulars  may  reflect  the  law,  but 
the  law  cannot  originate  with  them.  It  is  just  as  possible  for  the  logi- 
cally discrepant  particulars  of  the  imagination  to  generate  a  universal 
as  it  is  for  the  differing  rays  of  light  from  "  the  many-colored  dome  of 
glass"  to  become  what  they  once  were,  "  the  white  radiance  of  eter- 
nity." 

The  success  of  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  imagination   is  apparent, 
if  we  accept  his  premises.     The  theory  simply  disarms  theology  of  its 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  23 

weapons  of  attack  upon  philosophy  —  or  rather  shows  that  theology 
has  never  possessed  any  logical  weapons  of  attack  upon  the  province 
of  rational  knowledge.  Logically,  theology  must  either  abandon  its 
own  province  altogether,  renounce  its  revealed  doctrine,  and  abdicate 
its  authority  over  the  hearts  and  the  morals  of  the  community;  or  else 
it  must  keep  strictly  within  its  broad  territory,  and  make  no  attempt  to 
limit  the  freedom  of  philosophic  thought.  Take  into  account  as  well 
the  reinforcements  which  the  theory  of  the  imagination  receives  both 
from  Spinoza's  discussion  of  the  authorship  of  the  Scriptures  —  in 
which  he  anticipates  the  standpoint  of  modern  biblical  scholarship  — 
and  from  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  state,  which  aims  to  show  that  the 
safety  of  the  state  lies  in  "the  rule  that  religion  is  comprised  solely 
in  the  exercise  of  charity  and  justice,  and  that  the  rights  of  rulers  in 
sacred,  no  less  than  in  secular,  matters  should  merely  have  to  do  with 
action,  but  that  every  man  should  think  what  he  likes  and  say  what  he 
thinks" — take  all  this  into  account,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  that 
theology  has  not  been  excommunicated  from  philosophy  as  absolutely 
as  Spinoza  was  excommunicated  from  the  synagogue,  only  dispassion- 
ately and  with  no  breathing  of  curses. 

Yet  may  we  not  fairly  ask  :  Is  this  a  solution  sub  specie  aetemitatis? 
How  long  will  a  two-faced  imagination  be  at  peace  with  itself  ?  How 
long  can  the  imagination  and  the  understanding  get  on  without  each 
other? 

III.  The  Ethics. 

The  theory  of  the  imagination  involved  in  the  Ethics  is  the  same 
theory  as  the  one  involved  in  the  two  tractaii,  but  with  further  devel- 
opments and  applications.  The  Ethics  may  be  regarded  as  a  more 
complete  fulfilment  of  the  logic  worked  out  in  the  Tractatus  de  Intel- 
lectus  Emendatione.  In  harmony  with  that  logic,  its  movement  may  be 
described  as  the  deductive  evolution  of  the  standard  idea  of  an  abso- 
lutely perfect  being  ;  and  its  goal  may  be  described  as  the  intellectual 
unity  of  the  self  with  nature,  with  humanity,  and  with  God  —  the 
complete  rationalization  of  existence.  "  Spinoza's  greatness,"  says 
Hoffding  {History  of  Mod.  Phil.,  Vol.  I,  p.  314),  "consists  in  the  reso- 
lute carrying  out  of  the  thought  that  existence  must  be  rational  ;  from 
which  he  concludes  that  its  essence  must  be  identity  —  absolute  unity." 
Now,  opposed  to  such  a  unity,  to  such  a  goal,  is  the  imagination. 
Though  rejected,  it  is  still  a  lion  in  the  path.  For,  as  stated  in  the 
appendix  to  Book  I  of  the  Ethics,  and  as  has  been  stated  in  the 
previous  tractati,  the   imagination   is  found    to   be  the  source  of    all 


24  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

confused,  erroneous,  and  inadequate  ideas  —  these  being  the  indices  of 
personal  prejudices,  of  individual  capacities  and  limitations.  This 
may  be  taken  as  an  extremely  condensed  form  of  the  theory  of  the 
imagination  in  the  Ethics,  in  its  resemblance  to  that  of  the  tractati. 
The  following  are  the  important  additions  to  the  theory,  or  develop- 
ments of  points  previously  implied  : 

i.  A  physiological  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  imagination. 

2.  A  psychological  explanation  of  the  imagination  as  the  source 
of  error. 

3.  Imagination  the  correlate  of  the  body  rather  than  the  represen- 
tative of  the  object. 

4.  Relation  of  the  imagination  to  the  emotions. 

5.  Teleology  and  freedom  as  illusory. 

1.  Spinoza  gives  a  physiological  explanation  of  the  imagination 
on  the  hypothesis  of  animal  spirits  (II,  17,  Cor.  Proof).  The  state- 
ment is  perfectly  clear  so  far  as  it  goes.  But  a  "comparison  of  this 
passage  with  I,  15,  Sch.,  brings  out  an  interesting  contradiction.  The 
animal-spirits  hypothesis,  according  to  which  Spinoza  explains  the 
origin  of  the  imagination,  involves  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of 
particular  things  :  (1)  external  objects;  (2)  animal  spirits,  or  the  fluid 
parts  of  the  human  body;  (3)  the  softer  parts  of  the  human  body.  In 
I,  15,  Sch.,  however,  he  explains  the  origin  of  particular,  finite  things 
on  the  basis  of  the  nature  of  the  imagination  as  opposed  to  the 
intellect.  In  the  former  case  we  imagine  because  we  are  particular- 
ized, so  to  speak  —  we  are  acted  upon  by  particular,  finite  things;  in 
the  latter  case,  on  the  other  hand,  we  particularize  because  we  imagine.1 
A  remark  let  fall  by  Hume  is  pertinent  here  :  "The  same  principle 
cannot  be  both  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  another;  and  this  is,  perhaps, 
the  only  proposition  concerning  that  relation,  which  is  either  intui- 
tively or  demonstratively  certain"  (p.  90).  There  is  one  way  out  of 
the  contradiction  involved  in  Spinoza's  analysis  of  the  imagination  : 
regard  it  as  self-caused.  But  that  will  never  do,  for  that  would  identify 
it  with  Substance. 

This  apparently  fatal  circle  of  reasoning  is  not  to  be  dismissed  as 
a  logical  curiosity.  It  points  to  a  deeper  consequence ;  it  frames  and 
defines  the  nature  of  the  underlying  problem.  This  eddy  in  the  cur- 
rent of  Spinoza's  stream  of  thought  is  a  witness  alike  to  the  logic  of 
rejection  and  to  the  ideal  of  unity.     It  marks   a  point   at  which  the 

1  My  indebtedness  to  Professor  Dewey  for  this  point  is  specific.  See  his  article  on  the  "  Pantheism 
of  Spinoza,"  in  Jour,  of  Spec,  Phil.,  Vol.  XVI,  p.  24a. 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  25 

identity  between  Ursache  and  Wirkung,  and  Grund  and  Folge,1  breaks 
down ;  neither  series  is  complete ;  each  borrows  from,  and  lends  to, 
the  other.     The  categories  may  be  diagrammed  thus  : 


Grund:  ;>    Folge: 

igination  as  f  Particula 

mind  passive.  )  V 

Ursaci 
Animal  spirits,  etc.  Imagination. 


~\  Ursache:  -         — >    Wirkung: 


2.  Closely  related  to  what  I  have  called  a  physiological  explana- 
tion of  the  imagination  is  the  explanation  of  why  the  imagination  is 
a  source  of  error  and  confusion  (II,  40,  Sch.  1).  Both  rest  on  the 
assumption  of  animal  spirits  and  all  that  it  implies.  Spinoza  con- 
ceives the  body  to  be  capable  of  forming  only  a  certain  number  of 
images  within  itself  at  the  same  time.  If  the  number  be  exceeded,  the 
images  will  begin  to  be  confused.  If  this  number  be  largely  exceeded, 
the  images  will  become  entirely  confused  with  one  another.  In  all 
this  the  mind  parallels  the  body.  Spinoza  would  not  agree  with  Plato 
(Theaetetus,  194)  that  "the  wax  in  the  soul  of  anyone  could  be  suffi- 
ciently deep  and  abundant,  smooth  and  perfectly  tempered,"  "  pure 
and  clear,"  so  that  "  the  impressions  which  pass  through  the  senses 
and  sink  into  the  heart  of  the  soul"  could  be  retained  as  "true 
thoughts  "  "not  liable  to  confusion."  For  Spinoza  every  soul  would 
be,  in  this  respect,  essentially  limited  in  the  amount,  if  not  in  the 
quality,  of  its  "wax."  Like  Plato,  however,  he  would  ascribe  indis- 
tinctness and  confusion  to  a  multitude  of  impressions,  "  all  jostled 
together  in  a  little  soul,  which  has  no  room." 

The  point  of  the  explanation  was  its  application.  And  the  appli- 
cation was  made  in  accounting  for  the  origin  of  general  or  generic 
terms,  such  as  "  being,"  "  thing,"  "  man,"  "  horse,"  "  dog,"  etc.  "  They 
arise,  to  wit,  from  the  fact  that  so  many  images,  for  instance,  of  men,  are 
formed  simultaneously  in  the  human  mind,  that  the  powers  of  the  imagi- 
nation break  down,  not  indeed  utterly,  but  to  the  extent  of  the  mind 
losing  count  of  small  differences  between  individuals,  e.  g.,  color,  size, 
etc.,  and  their  definite  number,  and  only  distinctly  imagining  that  in 
which  all  the  individuals,  in  so  far  as  the  body  is  affected  by  them, 
agree"  (II,  40,  Sch.  1). 

1  Cf.  Max  Rackwitz,  Studien  iiber  Causalitdt  u.  Identitcit  als  Gritndprincipien  des  Spino- 
zismus  (Halle,  1884). 


26  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

All  that  Spinoza  has  said  with  reference  to  this  point  is  practically 
an  indictment  of  empirical  or  "inductive"  logic.  It  is  an  indictment 
of  any  logic  that  regards  generic  ideas  as  common  elements  abstracted 
from  particular  instances,  or  made  after  the  fashion  of  a  composite 
photograph. 

So  far  as  the  whole  theory  of  the  imagination  is  concerned,  how- 
ever, the  most  significant  feature  of  this  particular  explanation  is  its 
bearing  on  Spinoza's  concept  of  the  individual — a  concept  whose 
fundamental  importance  becomes  more  and  more  apparent  as  our  dis- 
cussion proceeds.  Although  the  generic  term  is  formed  by  abstracting 
the  common  element,  and  by  losing  track  of  differences,  it  does  not 
follow  that  a  generic  term  possessed  by  one  individual  will  be  identi- 
cal with  the  generic  term  of  the  same  name  possessed  by  any  other 
individual.  This  for  the  reason  that  the  images  from  which  the  term 
is  abstracted  are  never  alike  in  any  two  individuals.  "  We  must,  how- 
ever, bear  in  mind  that  these  general  notions  are  not  formed  by  all 
men  in  the  same  way,  but  vary  in  each  individual  according  as  the 
point  varies  whereby  the  body  has  been  most  often  affected,  and  which 
the  mind  most  easily  imagines  or  remembers  "  (II,  40,  Sch.  1).  In 
so  far  as  we,  as  individuals,  "  form  our  general  notions  by  abstracting 
them  from  particular  things  represented  to  our  intellects  fragmentarily, 
confusedly,  and  without  order,  through  our  senses,"  we.  have  the  kind 
of  knowledge  that  may  be  called  opinion  or  imagination  (II,  40,  Sch.  2). 

3.  Imagination  the  correlate  of  the  body,  rather  than  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  object. 

This  point  is  simply  a  phase  of  the  two  preceding  points.  "  The 
imagination  is  an  idea  which  indicates  rather  the  disposition  of  the 
human  body  than  the  nature  of  the  external  body  ;  not  indeed  distinctly, 
but  confusedly  ;  whence  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  mind  is  said  to  err  " 
(IV,  1,  Sch.).  Spinoza  would  differentiate  clearly  between  the  idea  of 
Peter  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  Peter's  mind,  and  the  idea  of 
Peter  which  is  in  another  man,  say  Paul.  The  first  is  a  true  repre- 
sentative idea.  The  second  is  quite  likely  to  be  imagination  ;  it  indi- 
cates rather  the  disposition  of  Paul's  body  than  the  nature  of  Peter 
(II,  17.  Sch.).  If  we  ask  Spinoza  how  an  individual  can  ever  form  an 
idea  that  does  not  indicate  the  present  disposition  of  his  body,  rather 
than  the  nature  of  the  object,  we  are,  of  course,  referred  to  the  paral- 
lelism of  attributes.  Or,  if  we  pursue  the  matter  and  ask  why  the  par- 
allelism of  attributes  will  not  assure  to  the  correlate  of  the  body  the 
validity  of  a  representative  of    the  object,  we  shall    come   upon  the 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  27 

doctrine  of  error  as  privation  (II,  23,  25,  and  IV,  1,  Sch.).  To  use  his 
illustration,  when  we  look  at  the  sun  and  imagine  it  to  be  but  two 
hundred  feet  distant  from  us,  the  error  does  not  lie  solely  in  the 
imagination  per  se  (cf.  II,  17,  Sch.,  last  part),  but  in  the  fact  that  we  do 
not  yet  possess  the  true  knowledge  of  its  distance.  In  other  words, 
the  error  consists  in  taking  the  appearance  for  the  reality.  Error  is, 
so  to  speak,  negative  reality. 

4.   Relation  of  the  imagination  to  the  emotions. 

When  Spinoza,  in  a  "  General  Definition  of  the  Emotions"  (conclu- 
sion of  Part  III),  states  that  "emotion,  which  is  called  a  passivity  of  the 
soul,  is  a  confused  idea,"  etc.,  it  is  evident  that  emotion  and  imagination 
have  been  brought  into  close  relationship  to  one  another.  What,  then, 
we  ask,  is  the  nature  and  significance  of  this  relationship  ?  I  doubt 
the  relevancy  of  entering  upon  a  detailed  discussion  of  Spinoza's  theory 
of  the  emotions,  and  I  therefore  submit  with  little  argument  the  follow- 
ing propositions  :  What  the  imagination  is  to  knowledge,  the  emotions 
are  to  conduct.  In  other  words,  what  the  imagination  is  to  the  under- 
standing, the  emotions  are  to  the  will.  According  to  II,  49  Cor.,  the 
understanding  and  the  will  are  identical.  Is  there  any  distinction  to 
be  made  between  imagination  and  emotion  ?  Hoffding  calls  attention 
to  a  contradiction  between  II,  49  Cor.,  and  III,  9,  Sch.  According  to 
the  latter  reference,  knowledge  is  made  dependent  on  will.  However 
this  may  be.  Spinoza  appeared  to  regard  the  emotions,  particularly 
desire,  as  presenting  more  of  the  active  element  of  the  mind  than  the 
imagination,  which  he  repeatedly  characterizes  as  the  mind  passive. 
"Desire  is  the  actual  essence  of  man,  in  so  far  as  it  is  conceived,  as 
determined  to  a  particular  activity  by  some  given  modification  of  itself 
....  By  the  term  '  desire,'  then,  I  here  mean  all  men's  endeavors, 
impulses,  appetites,  and  volitions,  which  vary  according  to  each  man's 
disposition,  and  which  are  therefore  not  seldom  opposed  to  one 
another,  according  as  a  man  is  drawn  in  different  directions,  and 
knows  not  where  to  turn  "  (III,  "  Definitions  of  Emotion,"  I).  Put  this 
with  the  definition  of  emotion  (III,  Def.  Ill),  and  with  the  important 
Nota  Bene,  and  the  nature  of  the  distinction  between  the  emotions  and 
imagination,  and  also  the  correspondence  of  one  with  the  other,  will 
be  evident  : 

By  emotion  I  mean  the  modification  of  the  body,  whereby  the  active  power 
of  the  said  body  is  increased  or  diminished,  aided  or  constrained,  and  also  the 
ideas  of  such  modifications.  N.  B. :  If  we  can  be  the  adequate  cause  of  any 
of  these  modifications,  I  then  call  the  emotion  an  activity,  otherwise  I  call  it 
a  passion,  or  a  state  wherein  the  mind  is  passive. 


2  8  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

Emotion,  thus  viewed,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  both  understand- 
ing and  imagination,  of  both  adequate  and  inadequate  ideas.  A  good 
deal  depends,  of  course,  upon  the  "if"  in  the  Nota  Bene.  In  the 
last  two  books  of  the  Ethics  it  is  Spinoza's  problem  to  show  how  it  is 
truly  possible  for  emotion  to  be  an  activity  of  the  mind.  A  principle 
of  activity  is  postulated  in  the  emotion  which  may  become  its  salva- 
tion. This  view  of  emotion  is  due,  I  believe,  to  the  fact  that  Spinoza 
kept  in  mind  and  emphasized  the  physiological  side  of  emotion.  "By 
emotion  I  mean  the  modifications  of  the  body,  whereby  the  active 
power  of  the  said  body,"  etc.;  whereas  the  physiological  explanation  of 
the  imagination  appears  to  have  been  developed  after  the  logical  and 
psychological  sides  had  already  been  worked  out.  The  word  "  emo- 
tion," then,  is  used  in  two  senses  :  (i)  as  an  activity  corresponding  to,  if 
not  identical  with,  the  activity  of  intelligence  ;  (2)  as  passion,  corre- 
sponding to  the  imagination. 

Emotion  as  passive  is  akin  to  imagination  in  two  important  aspects: 
(1)  It  represents  the  element  of  individual  variation,  in  the  sense  of 
haphazard  discrepancy  —  "impulses,  appetites,  and  volitions,  which 
vary  according  to  each  man's  disposition,  and  which  are  therefore  not 
seldom  opposed  to  one  another,"  etc.  We  have  seen  this  element  of 
spontaneous  variation  to  be  also  a  prevailing  characteristic  of  the 
imagination,  both  in  the  tractati  and  in  the  Ethics.  It  is  a  form  in 
which  Spinoza's  earliest  problem  persists,  and  which  he  is  continually 
endeavoring  to  get  rid  of.  (2)  It  represents  the  fact  that  the  indi- 
vidual finds  himself  overpowered  by  causes  external  to  him.  Man  is  a 
prey  to  his  passions.  (Preface  to  IV;  also  IV,  especially  2,  3-6.)  The 
individual  as  such  is  conditioned  to  act  by  another  finite  thing,  and 
that  by  another,  and  so  on  to  infinity  (I,  28).  "The  force  whereby  a 
man  persists  in  existing  is  limited,  and  is  infinitely  surpassed  by  the 
power  of  external  causes"  (IV,  3).  The  whole  doctrine  of  finite 
modes  is  involved.  {Cf.  I,  Def.  V,  and  proof  to  I,  28.)  "Hence  it 
follows  that  man  is  necessarily  always  a  prey  to  his  passions,  that  he 
follows  and  obeys  the  general  order  of  nature,  and  that  he  accommo- 
dates himself  thereto  as  much  as  the  nature  of  things  demands"  (IV, 
4,  Cor.).  Passion  results  from  the  feeble  struggle  of  the  activity  of  the 
self  against  the  overwhelming  odds  of  nature.  So  feeble  is  the  resist- 
ance offered  by  the  self  that  the  whole  being  appears  to  be  helplessly 
swept  along  in  the  irresistible  flood  of  passion.  "  We  are  in  many 
ways  driven  about  by  external  causes,  and,  like  waves  of  the  sea  driven 
by  contrary  winds,  we  toss  to  and  fro,  unwitting  of  the  issue  and  of  our 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  29 

fate"  (III,  59,  Sch.).  All  this  is  in  principle  equally  true  of  the  imagi- 
nation, though  it  is  stated  in  the  more  remote  and  colorless  terms  of 
logical  theory.  The  physiological  explanation  of  imagination  and  of 
the  way  it  forms  abstractions  from  data  —  literally  data — as  discussed 
above,  on  pp.  24,  25,  bears  out  the  point. 

5.  Teleology  and  freedom  as  illusory. 

Other  aspects  of  the  theory  of  the  imagination  in  the  Ethics,  such 
as  the  illusion  of  freedom  and  the  doctrine  of  final  causes,  though  of 
great  importance,  do  not  demand  a  full  discussion  here,  for  they  are 
simply  inevitable  applications  of  the  theory  as  it  has  been  repeatedly 
stated.  Self-conscious  freedom  and  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  repre- 
sent for  Spinoza  wholly  gratuitous  projections  of  personal  prejudices 
into  the  realm  of  natural  law,  self-deceptive  attempts  to  derive  a  whole 
from  discrepant  and  variable  fragments  {cf.  I,  Appendix ;  also  III,  2, 
Sch.). 

The  scope  of  this  discussion  does  not  include  the  Tractatus  Politi- 
cus,  for'  the  reason  that  this  tractatus  contains  no  mention  of  the  imagi- 
nation. But  the  fact  itself  is  sufficiently  important  to  mention.  The 
role  played  by  the  imagination  in  the  writings  discussed  above  is 
assigned  to  the  passions  in  the  Tractatus  Politicus —  the  passions  versus 
reason.  And  the  passions  of  the  tractati  are  the  passions  of  the  Ethics, 
which,  as  we  saw,  correspond  closely  to  the  imagination.  {Cf.  Chaps.  I, 
5  ;  II,  5,  6,  8,  14,  18;  III,  6  ;  VI,  1;  VII,  2,  4.)  Men  are  led  more  by 
blind  desire  than  by  reason.  The  passions  to  which  men  are  prey 
make  them  enemies  of  one  another.  In  the  state  of  nature,  every  man, 
of  course,  has  the  right  to  do  exactly  as  he  pleases ;  that  is,  the  indi- 
vidual as  natural  is  a  sovereign  —  he  can  do  no  wrong.  But  his  right 
to  do  exactly  as  he  pleases  is  limited  by  his  might,  which  in  turn  is  so 
limited  by  the  natural  forces  of  which  he  is  but  a  part,  and  by  other 
hostile  individuals,  that  his  right  is  practically  a  nonentity,  "existing 
in  opinion  rather  than  in  fact."  Hence  there  gradually  emerges  some 
form  of  co-operation  among  men,  some  attempt  to  live  according  to 
reason,  which  is  the  law  of  common  welfare  {cf.  Ethics,  IV,  35,  and 
Sch.  1  and  2). 

Spinoza's  political  theory  readily  lends  itself  to  a  statement  in 
physical  terms.  Every  individual  is  an  atom  possessing  two  qualities  — 
the  power  of  repelling  all  other  atoms,  passion  ;  and  the  power  of 
attracting  all  other  atoms,  reason.  As  a  gas  becomes  a  solid,  so  does 
the  state  of  nature  become  a  commonwealth.  But  Spinoza  in  his  quest 
for  unity  would  reject  the  passions  altogether,  as  mere  empty  space, 
and  keep  only  the  solidarity  of  the  atom. 


SO  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

This  is  not  intended  to  be  a  fair  or  adequate  statement  of  Spinoza's 
political  theory.  The  theory  of  the  imagination  or  of  the  passions 
does  not  receive  in  the  Tractatus  Politicus  a  new  development  that 
would  warrant  an  attempt  to  discuss  the  matter  fully,  but  perhaps 
enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  the  general  drift  of  the  political 
theory  and  the  part  assigned  to  the  externally  conditioned   individual. 

SEC.  IV.      SUMMARY    OF    THE    STATEMENT    OF    SPINOZA'S    THEORY    OF    THE 

IMAGINATION. 

It  must  be  evident  that  the  dualism  into  which  Spinoza  has  fallen 
cuts  far  deeper  than  the  psycho-physical  dualism  of  Descartes.  The 
dualism  finds  expression  in  the  following  forms  : 

Imagination  vs.  understanding. 

Theology  vs.  philosophy. 

Inadequate  vs.  adequate  ideas. 

Causes  external  vs.  causes  immanent. 

Passions  vs.  reason  or  virtue. 

Time  vs.  eternity. 

Finite  quantity  vs.  infinity. 

Multiplicity  of  modes  vs.  unity  of  substance. 

Necessity  vs.  freedom. 

It  is  evident  that  the  dualism  may  be  approached  from  a  psycho- 
logical, ethical,  logical,  or  metaphysical  standpoint.  I  shall  endeavor 
to  keep  within  close  range  of  the  psychological  standpoint. 

Spinoza's  problem,  as  we  have  seen,  took  its  rise  in  a  dissatisfaction 
which,  though  undoubtedly  an  expression  of  his  character  and  training, 
was  given  an  objective  reference;  it  was  a  dissatisfaction  with  the  com- 
monly accepted  goods  of  life  —  riches,  fame,  and  pleasure.  The  end 
proposed  as  a  solution,  that  verum  bonum,  was  also  given  an  objective 
reference.  It  was  that  object  which  a  man  might  love  and  never  find 
wanting.  In  the  process  of  getting  from  the  uncertain  and  fleeting 
objects  of  the  present  to  the  contemplation  and  love  of  that  fixed, 
supreme,  and  eternal  object,  a  psychological  mechanism  had  to  be 
invented  and  worked  out.  The  self  was  found  to  be  made  up  of 
imagination  and  appetites,  on  the  one  side,  and  of  understanding  or 
reason,  on  the  other.  To  the  world  of  uncertain  and  fleeting  objects 
corresponded  the  imagination  and  the  appetites.  To  the  unity  of  the 
whole  world  of  nature  corresponded  the  reason.  The  problem  was 
solved  in  its  very  statement  —  solved,  that  is,  by  identifying  the  imagi- 
nation with  things  finite  (in  the  Ethics  we  saw  how  this  identification 


SPINOZA'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  31 

was  effected  through  the  circular  reasoning  that  made  the  imagination 
the  cause  of  things  finite  and  things  finite  the  cause  of  the  imagina- 
tion), and  then  separating  the  imagination  from  reason.  Much  as  the 
early  Christian  monks  treated  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  so 
did  Spinoza  treat  the  imagination  ;  only  that  he  rejected  it,  not  for  the 
sake  of  an  other-world  salvation,  but  for  the  sake  of  salvation  in  the 
eternal  present  of  this  world.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  to  overestimate 
the  importance  of  the  fact  that  Spinoza  finally  brought  a  psychological 
analysis  to  bear  upon  his  problem.  To  so  great  an  extent,  however, 
was  the  analysis  simply  a  reflection  of  the  two  kinds  of  objects  with 
reference  to  which  it  was  made  that  the  self  which  he  dissected  out  fell 
into  two  parts,  quite  as  antagonistic  and  irreconcilable  as  the  two  kinds 
of  objects  given  in  the  first  place. 

Many  critical  questions  have  suggested  themselves  throughout  the 
discussion,  and  still  persist.     They  may  be  concentered  in  these  two: 

1.  How  far  can  manifold,  fragmentary,  finite  particulars  and  the 
imagination  be  identified? 

2.  How  far  can  reason  and  the  imagination  be  dissociated  ?     What 
becomes  of  the  individual  when  cut  in  two  in  this  fashion  ? 


PART  II. 
HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION. 

I  have  been  able  to  discover  no  finer  or  more  suggestive  answers 
to  the  questions  just  raised  than  the  development  of  English  sensa- 
tionalism, which  was  among  other  things  a  criticism,  though  an 
unconscious  one,  of  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  imagination.  The  very 
elements  rejected  by  Spinoza  as  sources  of  error  and  confusion  became 
the  foundations,  the  unquestioned  data,  of  the  philosophies  and 
psychologies  of  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume. 

It  will  probably  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  examine  only 
Hume's  theory  of  the  imagination.  For  Hume  recapitulates  the 
sensationalism  of  his  predecessors  ;  at  the  same  time  frankly  shearing 
away  all  inconsistent  assumptions,  and  thus  coming  unawares  upon 
inconsistencies  in  the  central  assumption  itself. 

I  shall  attempt  to  show  that  Hume's  unconscious  criticism  of 
Spinoza  has  a  twofold  significance  : 

i.  As  revealing  the  value  of  an  instrument  that  Spinoza  criticised 
and  discarded  ;  and 

2.  As  revealing,  also,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  elevating  this 
instrument,  as  Hume  proposed,  to  the  rank  of  a  supreme  epistemo- 
logical  principle;  or,  to  use  Hume's  words,  to  the  rank  of  "the  ulti- 
mate judge  of  all  systems  of  philosophy  "  (p.  225).  In  a  sense  Spinoza 
was  a  critic  of  Hume,  as  well  as  Hume  of  Spinoza. 

SEC.   I.       THE    NATURE    OF    HUME'S    PROBLEM. 

Unlike  Spinoza,  Hume  left  behind  him  no  explicit  statement  of  the 
nature  and  origin  of  his  problem.  The  nearest  approach  to  such  a 
statement  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in  that  sentence  which  Professor 
Huxley,  in  his  work  on  Hume,  regards  as  the  keynote  of  the  treatise  : 

I  found  that  the  moral  philosophy  transmitted  to  us  by  antiquity  labored 
under  the  same  inconvenience  that  has  been  found  in  their  natural  philosophy, 
of  being  entirely  hypothetical,  and  depending  more  upon  invention  than 
experience :  everyone  consulted  his  fancy  in  erecting  schemes  of  virtue  and 
happiness,  without  regarding  human  nature,  upon  which  every  moral  conclu- 
sion must  depend.1 

1  Huxley:  Hume,  with  Helps  to  the  Study  of  Berkeley  (New  York,  1894),  p.  11. 

32 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  33 

But  this  sounds  more  like  Bacon  than  like  Hume.  The  problem 
with  which  Hume  came  to  be  concerned  was  not  so  much  how  phi- 
losophy may  be  founded  on  experience  as  how  experience  itself  is 
constituted.  Just  what  this  problem  was,  or  at  least  what  one  impor- 
tant phase  of  it  was,  will  become  evident,  I  believe,  in  the  course  of  the 
following  discussion  of  Hume's  theory  of  the  imagination.  I  will 
make  only  a  brief  preliminary  statement  with  reference  to  it. 

In  shearing  away  all  the  inconsistent  and  metaphysical  assumptions 
of  his  predecessors,  Hume  reduced  sensationalism  to  sensations.  The 
problem  was  how  to  build  up  out  of  these  sensations  the  coherent  and 
rational  wholes  of  experience.  It  was  in  a  way  Kant's  problem  that 
Hume  had  to  struggle  with  —  the  problem  of  how  an  individual 
experience  is  constituted,  of  how  intrinsic  relations  are  to  be  discovered 
and  maintained,  in  place  of  the  extrinsic  metaphysical  entities  that  had 
been  begged  or  assumed  in  sensationalism  up  to  that  time,  fl  shall 
attempt  to  show  how  Hume,  in  the  straits  of  his  problem,  finally 
resorted  to  the  imagination  as  the  sole  instrument  capable  of  meeting 
the  demand   for  a  coherent  and    forward-moving    individual   experi- 


ence. 


SEC.   II.       SENSES    IN    WHICH    HUME    USES    THE    WORD    "IMAGINATION. 

The  word  "imagination"  recurs  frequently  throughout  the  Treatise 
of  Human  Nature,  and  in  different  senses.  Hume  acknowledges  at 
least  three  different  uses  of  the  term:  (1)  when  opposed  to  memory; 
(2)  when  opposed  to  reason  ;  (3)  when  opposed  to  neither,  i.  e.,  when 
"it  is  indifferent  whether  it  be  taken  in  the  larger  or  more  limited 
sense,"  or  when  "  at  least  the  context  will  explain  the  meaning  "  (p.  117, 
note).     In  this  sense  it  is  usually  equivalent  to  "  fancy." 

I.  Imagination  distinguished  from  memory. 

Imagination  and  memory  are  alike  in  that  they  are  both  repetitions 
of  impressions,  reproductions  of  past  perceptions.  They  differ  in  two 
respects:  (1)  "The  ideas  of  memory  are  much  more  lively  and  strong 
than  those  of  the  imagination."  Ideas  of  memory  approach  the 
vivacity  of  the  original  perceptions.  Those  of  the  imagination  have 
lost  that  vivacity  and  have  become  perfect  ideas.  (2)  Memory  repro- 
duces the  arrangement  of  the  original  perceptions.  Imagination  is 
free  to  recombine  them.  "The  imagination  is  not  restrain'd  to  the 
same  order  and  form  with  the  original  impressions  ;  while  the  memory 
is  in  a  manner  ty'd  down  in  that  respect,  without  any  power  of  varia- 
tion."    (Book  I,  Part  I,  sec.  3,  and  Part  III,  sec.  5.) 


34  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

But  Hume  is  too  good  a  psychologist  to  allow  these  two  distinc- 
tions to  stand  as  hard  and  fast  realities.  In  fact,  he  practically 
abandons  both  of  them  when  he  comes  to  the  discussion  of  belief.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  memory  preserves  the  order  and  arrangement  of 
sense-perceptions,  while  imagination  freely  transposes  them,  we  can 
never  on  that  basis  tell  an  idea  of  the  memory  from  one  of  the 
imagination,  "it  being  impossible  to  recall  the  past  impressions,  in 
order  to  compare  them  with  our  present  ideas,  and  see  whether  their 
arrangement  be  exactly  similar."  Since,  therefore,  the  memory  is 
known  neither  by  the  order  of  its  complex  ideas  nor  by  the  nature  of  its 
simple  ones  —  it  being  borne  in  mind  that  both  memory  and  the  imagi- 
nation "  borrow  their  simple  ideas  from  the  impressions,  and  can  never 
go  beyond  these  original  perceptions" — it  follows  that  the  differ- 
ence between  it  and  the  imagination  lies  in  its  superior  force  and 
vivacity.  "A  man  may  indulge  his  fancy  in  feigning  any  past  scene 
of  adventures;  nor  would  there  be  any  possibility  of  distinguishing 
this  from  a  remembrance  of  a  like  kind,  were  not  the  ideas  of  the 
imagination  fainter  and  more  obscure"  (p.  85).  It  now  becomes 
difficult  to  see  how  the  second  distinction  mentioned  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  can  have  any  value  whatsoever.  Even  if  it  be  a  true  dis- 
tinction, it  is  one  of  which  we  can  never  be  directly  aware  ;  it  must 
always  rest  upon  an  uncertainty  :  if  our  ideas  with  reference  to  any 
experience  are  relatively  faint,  we  may  infer  that  we  are  using  the 
imagination,  a  faculty  which  may  be  exercising  its  power  of  independ- 
ent reconstruction  of  ideas.  But  Hume  will  not  allow  even  the  first 
distinction  mentioned  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  the  distinction  of 
force  and  vivacity,  to  remain  unqualified.  An  idea  of  the  memory 
may  lose  its  force  and  vivacity,  and  become  an  idea  of  the  imagination. 
"We  are  frequently  in  doubt  concerning  the  ideas  of  the  memory,  as 
they  become  very  weak  and  feeble ;  and  are  at  a  loss  to  determine 
whether  any  image  proceeds  from  the  fancy  or  the  memory,  when  it  is 
not  drawn  in  such  lively  colours  as  distinguish  that  latter  faculty.  I 
think,  I  remember  such  an  event,  says  one ;  but  am  not  sure.  A  long 
tract  of  time  has  almost  worn  it  out  of  my  memory,  and  leaves  me 
uncertain  whether  or  not  it  be  the  pure  offspring  of  my  fancy"  (pp. 
85,86).  "So,  on  the  other  hand,  an  idea  of  the  imagination  may 
acquire  such  force  and  vivacity,  as  to  pass  for  an  idea  of  the  memory, 
and  counterfeit  its  effects  on  the  belief  and  judgment.  This  is  noted 
in  the  case  of  liars  ;  who  by  the  frequent  repetition  of  their  lies,  come 
at  last  to  believe  and  remember  them,  as  realities;  custom  and  habit 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  35 

• 
having  in  this  case,  as  in  many  others,  the  same  influence  on  the  mind 
as  nature"  (p.  86).  But,  we  ask,  if  an  idea  may  degenerate  or  develop 
in  either  direction,  how  is  the  distinction  with  reference  to  force  and 
vivacity  to  be  of  any  more  service  than  the  distinction  with  reference  to 
correspondence  and  transformation  ?  How  are  we  to  know  whether  a 
given  idea  is  a  fiction  of  the  imagination  or  a  faithful  reproduction  of 
past  experience  ?  If  it  has  a  force  and  liveliness,  we  must  forsooth 
believe  in  it.  But  the  idea  itself  may  be  either  a  faithful  reproduction 
of  past  experience,  or  it  may  be  a  recombination  and  transformation 
of  the  imagination  which  has  acquired  such  force  and  liveliness  as  to 
pass  itself  off  for  an  idea  of  the  memory.  Hume  would  have  us  say,  I 
presume,  that  as  a  rule  belief,  which  is  only  another  name  for  force 
and  vivacity  of  perceptions  and  ideas,  "attends  the  memory  and  the 
senses,"  and  not  the  imagination;  as  a  rule,  remembering  is  believing 
—  just  as  seeing  is  believing  —  and  imagining  may  be  more  or  less  of 
illusion ;  but  practically  the  distinction  will  not  always  hold  true 
Sometimes  we  believe  in  the  illusion,  and  disbelieve  in  the  half- 
forgotten  testimony  of  our  senses.  And  Hume's  psychology  is  so  true 
to  life  that  we  can  never  tell  whether  we  have  a  rule  or  an  exception. 
So  much  for  the  distinctions  between  imagination  and  memory, 
involving  belief.  Hume  gives  us  no  explanation  of  the  origin  of  these 
distinctions,  nor  anything  but  hints  as  to  the  forces  that  sweep  them 
away.     Let  us  now  see  how  it  fares  with 

II.   Imagination  distinguished  from  reason. 

"When  I  oppose  imagination  to  the  memory,  I  mean  the  faculty, 
by  which  we  form  our  fainter  ideas.  When  I  oppose  it  to  reason,  I 
mean  the  same  faculty,  excluding  only  our  demonstrative  and  probable 
reasonings"  (p.  117,  note.).  The  expression  "the  same  faculty"  is 
ambiguous  in  its  reference  ;  but  subsequent  statements  make  it  clear 
that  Hume  identifies  reason  and  imagination  to  some  extent,  e.  g.,  "to 
the  understanding,  that  is,  to  the  general  and  more  established  proper- 
ties of  the  imagination"  (p.  267).  The  distinction  between  imagina- 
tion and  reason  grows  sharper  and  deeper  as  the  treatise  proceeds  — 
in  this  respect  quite  the  contrary  of  the  distinction  between  imagina- 
tion and  memory. 

At  first,  imagination  and  reason  appear  to  co-operate  in  one  of  the 
two  worlds  in  which  we  live.  These  two  worlds  are  (1)  the  world  of 
memory  and  senses,  with  which,  strictly  speaking,  in  the  nature  of  the 
terms  as  defined  above,  the  imagination  has  nothing  to  do.  This 
world  is  the  system  which  we  form  of  our  impressions  and  ideas  of 


36  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

memory;  "and  every  particular  of  that  system  joined  to  the  present 
impressions  we  are  pleased  to  call  a  reality.  But  the  mind  stops  not 
here"  (p.  108).  And  we  have  (2)  the  world  of  judgment,  in  which, 
as  the  following  quotation  will  make  evident,  imagination  and  reason 
work  together  in  harmony;  it  is  that  system  of  perceptions  which  is 
"connected  by  custom,  or  if  you  will,  by  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  .  ..."  (p.  108).  And  as  the  mind  "feels  that  it  is  in  a  manner 
necessarily  determined  to  view  these  particular  ideas,  and  that  the 
custom  or  relation,  by  which  it  is  determined,  admits  not  of  the  least 
change,  it  forms  them  into  a  new  system,  which  it  likewise  dignifies 
with  the  title  of  realities "  (p.  108). 

'Tis  this  latter  principle  which  peoples  the  world,  and  brings  us  acquainted 
with  such  existence,  as  by  their  removal  in  time  and  place,  lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  senses  and  memory.  By  means  of  it  I  paint  the  universe  in  my 
imagination,  and  fix  my  attention  on  any  part  of  it  I  please.  I  form  an  idea 
of  Rome,  which  I  neither  see  nor  remember  ;  but  which  is  connected  with 
such  impressions  as  I  remember  to  have  received  from  the  conversation  and 
books  of  travelers  and  historians.  This  idea  of  Rome  I  place  in  a  certain 
situation  on  the  idea  of  an  object,  which  I  call  the  globe.  I  join  to  it  the 
conception  of  a  particular  government,  and  religion,  and  manners.  I  look 
backward  and  consider  its  first  foundation  ;  its  several  revolutions,  successes, 
and  misfortunes.  All  this,  and  everything  else,  which  I  believe,  are  nothing 
but  ideas  ;  tho'  by  their  force  and  settled  order,  arising  from  custom  and 
the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  they  distinguish  themselves  from  the  other 
ideas,  which  are  merely  the  offspring  of  the  imagination  (p.  108).  [Italics 
mine.] 

I  have  quoted  the  last  paragraph  in  full,  not  only  because  it  tells 
how  harmoniously  imagination  and  reason  may  work  together,  but  also 
because  it  contains  an  example  of  the  use  of  the  word  "imagination" 
in  the  third  sense;  that  is,  in  a  sense  opposed  or  related  neither  to 
memory  nor  to  reason.  In  other  words,  the  paragraph  contains  two 
entirely  different  uses  of  the  word.  In  the  first  instance  the  word  is 
used  in  the  sense  of  the  handmaid  of  reason  ;  its  ideas  have  the  "force 
and  settled  order  arising  from  custom  and  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect."  In  the  second  instance  the  word  is  used  in  the  sense  of  mere 
fancy  and  caprice. 

The  occasional  agreement  and  co-operation  of  the  reason  with  the 
imagination  is  easier  to  note  and  record  than  the  progress  and  out- 
come of  the  growing  distinction  and  conflict  between  the  two.  I  will 
not  here  attempt  to  trace  all  the  turnings  and  windings  of  thought  in 
and  out  and  back  and  forth,  in  which  reason  is  now  "the  discovery 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  37 

of  truth  and  falsehood"  (p.  458),  and  now  the  probability  of  proba- 
bilities ad  infinitum,  "till  at  last  there  remains  nothing  of  the  original 
probability,  however  great  we  may  suppose  it  to  have  been,  and  how- 
ever small  the  diminution  by  every  new  uncertainty"  (p.  182);  and  in 
which  the  imagination  is  now  a  mere  fanciful  transformation  of  ideas, 
and  now  the  very  foundation  of  the  memory,  the  senses,  and  the  under- 
standing (p.  265),  and  the  bearer  of  causation  and  the  objective  world; 
until  at  length  we  are  pulled  up  short  by  the  startling  antithesis  :  "  We 
have,  therefore,  no  choice  left  but  betwixt  a  false  reason  and  none  at 
all"  (p.  265).  For  the  main  features  of  this  shifting  interplay  and 
growing  distinction  and  conflict  will  come  to  light,  I  hope,  in  the 
impending  discussion  of  the  active  part  or  function  that  imagination 
plays  in  Hume's  theory  of  knowledge. 

III.  Imagination  distinguished  from  habit,  association,  and  emo- 
tion. 

There  are  other  important  distinctions  and  relations  between 
imagination  and  other  categories  of  the  mind,  involved  in  the  treatise, 
which  should  be  taken  into  account,  although  they  seem  not  to  have 
had  nearly  so  much  importance  for  Hume  as  the  distinctions  and  rela- 
tions discussed  above,  or  else  were  taken  for  granted.  They  are  (1) 
imagination  and  custom  or  habit;  (2)  imagination  and  the  laws  of 
association  ;  and  (3)  imagination  and  the  passions  or  emotions.  As 
all  but  the  last  are  involved  in  the  discussion  of  causation  and  objec- 
tivity, brief  statements  will  here  suffice. 

1.  The  relation  between  custom,  or  habit,  and  imagination  is 
extremely  intimate.  Imagination  is  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter, 
custom.  "  Custom  takes  the  start  and  gives  a  bias  to  the  imagina- 
tion "  (p.  148). 

A  significant  distinction  between  imagination  and  reason  is  made 
in  connection  with  this  point  (pp.  147-9).  Custom  lies  at  the  bot- 
tom of  both  imagination  and  reason,  imagination  being  conceived  as 
the  mediator  between  custom  and  reason,  in  a  way  that  recalls  the 
schematism  of  Kant.  "According  to  my  system,  all  reasonings  are 
nothing  but  the  effects  of  custom  ;  and  custom  has  no  influence,  but 
by  enlivening  the  imagination,  and  giving  us  a  strong  conception  of 
any  object"  (p.  149).  But  imagination  and  reason  are  by  no  means 
identical  or  always  in  agreement.  The  imagination  is,  so  to  speak,  the 
more  plastic  element,  the  more  sensitive,  fluent,  impulsive  element  ; 
whereas  the  reason  is  more  staid  and  sober  and  responds  only  to  gen- 
eral rules  (Book  I,  Part  III,  sec.  15),  to  acknowledged  and  conserva- 


38  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

tive  principles.  "The  general  rule  is  attributed  to  our  judgment;  as 
being  more  extensive  and  constant.  The  exception  to  the  imagina- 
tion ;  as  being  more  capricious  and  uncertain"  (p.  149). 

2.  The  relation  between  the  principles  of  association  of  ideas  — 
resemblance,  contiguity,  and  causation  —  is  similar  to  the  relation 
between  the  imagination  and  custom.  Without  these  principles  of 
association,  chance  alone,  as  Hume  says,  would  join  the  ideas  of  the 
imagination.  In  the  chapter  treating  of  the  "Connexion  or  Associa- 
tion of  Ideas  "  (Book  I,  Part  I,  sec.  4)  Hume  does  little  more  than 
mention  that  third  principle  of  association,  cause  and  effect,  leaving  a 
thorough  examination  of  it  to  another  occasion.  Anticipating,  how- 
ever, our  discussion  of  that  examination,  we  may  pause  to  note  the 
circular  reasoning  involved  in  making  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect 
one  of  the  guiding  principles  of  the  imagination,  and  then  later  in 
showing  how  the  imagination  is  the  only  faculty  that  makes  possible 
the  idea  of  cause  and  effect.  It  would  be  anticipating  too  much  to 
attempt  to  bring  out  at  this  point  the  full  significance  of  this  circle. 
It  suggests  the  circular  reasoning  into  which  Spinoza  fell  in  consider- 
ing the  relation  between  the  imagination  and  things  finite. 

Another  significant  distinction  between  imagination  and  reason 
comes  out  in  connection  with  this  point.  Reason  is  totally  inadequate 
to  afford  any  basis  for  the  principles  of  association.  Only  the  imagi- 
nation can  do  this. 

Reason  can  never  shew  us  the  connection  of  one  object  with  another, 
tho'  aided  by  experience,  and  the  observation  of  their  constant  conjunction  in 
all  past  instances.  When  the  mind,  therefore,  passes  from  the  idea  or  impres- 
sion of  one  object  to  the  idea  or  belief  of  another,  it  is  not  determined  by 
reason,  but  by  certain  principles,  which  associate  together  in  the  ideas  of  these 
objects,  and  unite  them  in  the  imagination.  Had  ideas  no  more  union  in  the 
fancy  than  objects  seem  to  have  to  the  understanding,  we  could  never  draw 
any  inference  from  causes  to  effects,  nor  repose  belief  in  any  matter  of  fact. 
The  inference,  therefore,  depends  solely  on  the  union  of  ideas.     (P.  92.) 

3.  A  discussion  of  the  relation  between  the  imagination  and  the 
passions,  or  emotions,  involving  Hume's  fundamental  moral  category 
—  sympathy  —  would  take  us  too  far  afield  of  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge. It  would  hardly  be  relevant  to  our  purpose  to  examine  how 
"'tis  on  the  imagination  that  pity  entirely  depends"  (p.  371),  or  how 
"'tis  certain,  that  sympathy  is  not  always  to  the  present  moment,  but 
that  we  often  feel  by  communication  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  others, 
which  are  not  in  being,  and  which  we  can  only  anticipate  by  the  force 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  39 

of  the  imagination  "  (p.  385).  But,  at  the  risk  of  apparent  digres- 
sion, I  should  like  to  call  attention  to  a  very  fine  piece  of  psycho- 
logical analysis  in  Book  I,  which,  in  discovering  the  mutual 
reinforcement  of  the  imagination  and  the  emotions,  anticipates  the 
modern  organic-circuit  interpretation  of  the  reflex-arc  theory.  I 
will  quote  the  whole  paragraph,  italicizing  the  most  significant  pas- 
sage : 

....  custom  takes  the  start,  and  gives  a  bias  to  the  imagination. 

To  illustrate  this  by  a  familiar  instance,  let  us  consider  the  case  of  a  man, 
who  being  hung  out  from  a  high  tower  in  a  cage  of  iron  cannot  forbear  trem- 
bling, when  he  surveys  the  precipice  below  him,  tho'  he  knows  himself  to  be 
perfectly  secure  from  falling,  by  his  experience  of  the  solidity  of  the  iron,  which 
supports  him ;  and  tho'  the  ideas  of  fall  and  descent,  and  harm  and  death,  be 
derived  solely  from  custom  and  experience.  The  same  custom  goes  beyond 
the  instances,  from  which  it  is  derived,  and  to  which  it  perfectly  corresponds  ; 
and  influences  his  ideas  of  such  objects  as  are  in  some  respect  resembling,  but 
fall  not  precisely  under  the  same  rule.  The  circumstances  of  depth  and  descent 
strike  so  strongly  upon  him,  that  their  influence  cannot  be  destroyed  by  the  con- 
trary circumstances  of  support  and  solidity,  which  ought  to  give  him  a  perfect 
security.  His  imagination  runs  away  with  its  object,  and  excites  a  passion 
proportioned  to  it.  That  passion  turns  back  upon  the  imagination  and  enlivens 
the  idea ;  which  lively  idea  has  a  new  influence  on  the  passion,  and  iti  its 
turn  augments  its  force  and  violence  ;  and  both  his  fancy  and  affections,  thus 
mutually  supporting  each  other,  cause  the  whole  to  have  a  very  great  influence 
upon  him.     (P.  148.) 

We  certainly  have  before  us  a  remarkable  instance  of  how  far 
Hume's  native  psychological  sagacity  could  outrun  the  sensationalistic 
inheritance,  which  he  elsewhere  accepts  uncritically.  Had  he  only  been 
able  to  take  his  man  out  of  the  iron  cage  which  was  hung  out  from  the 
high  tower,  and  set  him  down  on  firm  ground,  he  might  never  have 
become  the  traditional  means  of  awakening  Kant  from  his  dogmatic 
slumber. 

To  conclude  this  portion  of  the  subject.  One  thing  is  so  evident, 
I  believe,  as  not  to  need  emphasis  or  further  discussion — the  fact  that 
Hume  wavers  between  a  structural  and  a  functional  statement  of  the 
categories  of  the  mind ;  between  an  attempt  to  set  up  distinctions 
and  determine  boundary  lines,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  candid  recog- 
nition of  the  active,  living,  functioning  character  of  the  elements 
singled  out  by  and  for  critical  analysis,  on  the  other.  On  the 
side  of  description,  of  structural  distinctions,  are  (1)  sense-percep- 
tion, (2)  memory,  (3)  imagination,  (4)  reason,  (5)  habit,  (6)  principles 


40  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

of  association,  (7)  emotions.  They  can  be  made  to  hold  still,  as  it 
were,  long  enough  to  have  their  pictures  taken.  But  on  the  side  of 
explanation,  of  functional  interpretation,  note  the  interplay,  the  pro- 
tean shifting  of  character,  the  cinematographic  display  of  activity. 
Sense-perceptions  become  either  memory  or  imagination.  Memory 
fades  to  imagination.  Imagination  wakes  into  memory  —  or  more,  ima- 
gination, after  transforming  and  recombining  the  material  given  by 
sense-perceptions  and  memory,  wakes  into  a  new  memory,  or  to  an 
illusion  that  is  taken  for  a  memory.  Reason  and  imagination  are  as  one, 
like  man  and  wife  ;  and  then  they  fall  out,  and  quarrel  with  one  another 
till  they  find  out  that  another  element,  custom  or  habit,  has  made  them 
what  they  are,  and  till  they  learn  that  one  of  them  is  simply  a  deeper, 
more  permanent  crystallization  of  habit  than  the  other.  But  reason  has 
lost  its  plasticity,  its  progressive  quality;  with  the  help  of  imagination 
it  can  give  us  the  old  world,  the  old  Rome,  but  not  the  new  ;  it  is  a  hope- 
less Tory.  Therefore  it  is  denied  all  participation  in  the  principles  of 
association.  Imagination,  however,  can  give  us  a  new  world,  growing  out 
of  the  old;  it  is  more  like  a  Liberal  Unionist.  And  finally  we  have  the 
whole  circuit  of  activity.  Sense-perception  reacts  into  conflicting 
habits;  ideas  of  memory  and  of  imagination  are  brought  into  play; 
these  ideas  exite  the  emotions  ;  the  emotions  in  turn  reinforce  the  sense- 
perceptions  and  react  upon  the  imagination  and  "enliven"  the  idea, 
thereby  making  it  more  believable;  and  so  on,  causing  "the  whole  to 
have  a  very  great  influence"  on  the  man. 

We  miss  in  Hume  the  brave  show  of  logical  consistency  that  we 
found  in  Spinoza.  We  miss  the  sense  of  completeness  and  finality 
that  comes  with  a  view  of  Spinoza's  deductive  hierarchy  of  systematic 
thought.  Hume's  analysis  may,  in  contrast,  appear  to  reduce  the  world 
of  the  spirit  to  chaos.  But  there  is  life  here.  There  may  be  small 
hint  of  division  of  labor,  but  there  is  a  forecast  of  organic  activity. 
There  is  a  basis  for  a  fine  skepticism  of  rigid  class  distinctions,  and  for 
a  faith  in  onward  movement. 

SEC.    III.       THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    IMAGINATION    IN    THE    THEORY    OF 

KNOWLEDGE. 

The  function  of  imagination  in  Hume's  theory  of  knowledge  can 
be  stated  in  a  few  words.  It  is  the  faculty  which  makes  it  possible  for 
us  to  have  the  conception  of  causation  and  the  conception  of  objec- 
tivity. Hume's  expression  for  objectivity  is  the  continued  and  dis- 
tinct, or  independent,  existence  of  objects. 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  41 

Hume  never  doubts  the  reality  of  causation  or  of  objectivity,  as  I 
understand  him,  but  is  concerned  solely  in  accounting  for  the  way  in 
which  we  come  to  have  believable  ideas  of  such  realities.  "We  may 
begin  with  observing  that  the  difficulty  in  the  present  case  is  not  con- 
cerning the  matter  of  fact,  or  whether  the  mind  forms  such  a  con- 
clusion concerning  the  continued  existence  of  its  perceptions,  but  only 
concerning  the  manner  in  which  the  conclusion  is  formed,  and  prin- 
ciples from  which  it  is  derived"  (p.  206).  The  same  would  be  true  of 
causation.  Hume  becomes  a  skeptic  with  reference  to  all  existing 
explanations  of  the  way  in  which  we  come  to  form  ideas  of  such  real- 
ities, as  I  shall  attempt  to  bring  out  in  the  course  of  this  discussion, 
rather  than  a  skeptic  with  reference  to  the  existence  of  these  realities 
themselves.  In  short,  his  interest  seems  to  be  psychological,  rather 
than  metaphysical  or  epistemological. 

Causation  involves  three  essential  factors  :  contiguity,  or  relations 
in  space;  succession,  or  relations  in  time;  and  necessary  connection. 
The  first  two  are  given  in  ordinary  sense-perception.  But  whence  is 
the  idea  of  necessary  connection  derived?  If  we  observe  that  objects 
of  one  sort  follow  immediately  objects  of  another  sort,  and  if  we  remem- 
ber to  have  observed  that  this  has  been  the  case  in  all  past  instances  in 
which  these  objects  have  been  concerned,  we  say  that  they  are  constantly 
conjoined,  and  that  in  such  a  constant  conjunction  the  antecedent  is 
the  cause  of  the  consequent  (Book  I,  Part  III,  sec.  6).  Constant 
conjunction,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  be  the  same  as  necessary  connec- 
tion, just  as  a  case  of  unvarying  post  hoc  would  to  all  practical  intents 
and  purposes  be  the  same  as  a  propter  hoc;  provided,  Hume  would 
have  to  add,  that  we  could  know  beforehand  in  some  miraculous 
way  that  this  was  a  case  of  unvarving  post  hoc.  And  yet  "this  new- 
discovered  relation  of  a  constant  conjunction  seems  to  advance  us  but 
very  little  on  our  way"  (p.  88).  For  constant  conjunction  is  nothing 
but  the  multiplication  of  instances.  If  a  single  instance  of  conjunc- 
tion between  two  objects  can  never  give  us  the  idea  of  necessary  con- 
nection, how  can  we  get  such  an  idea  from  the  mere  repetition  of  this 
instance  ?  "  From  the  mere  repetition  of  any  past  impression,  even  to 
infinity,  there  never  will  arise  any  new  original  idea,  such  as  that  of  a 
necessary  connexion  ;  and  the  number  of  impressions  has  in  this  case 
no  more  effect  than  if  we  confined  ourselves  to  one  only"  (p.  88). 

The  senses  and  the  memory,  then,  can  never  give  us  the  concept  of 
causation.  There  remain  two  other  possible  sources,  the  reason  and 
the  imagination.     Hume  asks  reason  first. 


42  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

"If  reason  determined  us,  it  would  proceed  upon  that  principle, 
that  instances  of  which  we  have  had  no  experience  must  resemble  those  of 
which  we  have  had  experience,  and  that  the  course  of  nature  continues 
always  the  same"  (p.  89).  Such  a  proposition  must  rest  either  upon 
demonstrative  knowledge  or  upon  probability.  It  cannot  rest  upon 
demonstrative  knowledge,  for  we  have  no  demonstrative  arguments 
that  transcend  experience.  Neither  can  it  rest  upon  probability,  for 
even  probability  has  to  have  some  objective  data  on  which  to  work ; 
it  can  have  nothing  whatever  to  say  in  regard  to  those  "  instances  of 
which  we  have  had  no  experience."  "  Probability,  as  it  discovers  not 
the  relations  of  ideas,  considered  as  such,  but  only  those  of  objects, 
must  in  some  respects  be  founded  on  the  impressions  of  our  memory 
and  senses,  and  in  some  respects  on  our  ideas"  (p.  89).  Then  follows 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  sentences  in  the  whole  treatise,  significant 
not  only  in  its  bearing  upon  present  discussion,  but  in  its  anticipation 
of  the  famous  dictum  of  Kant  that  forms  of  thought  without  sense-per- 
ceptions are  empty,  and  sense-perceptions  without  forms  of  thought 
are  blind:  "Were  there  no  mixture  of  any  impression  in  our  probable 
reasonings,  the  conclusion  would  be  entirely  chimerical :  And  were 
there  no  mixture  of  ideas,  the  action  of  the  mind,  in  observing  the 
relation,  would,  properly  speaking,  be  sensation,  not  reasoning" 
(p.  89). 

The  next  step  is  the  subtle  distinction  between  presumption  and 
probability.  The  idea  of  cause  and  effect  is  only  a  presumption.  We 
presume  the  existence  of  an  object  similar  to  the  usual  attendant  of 
another  object.  Now,  the  probability  of  cause  and  effect  is.  unquestion- 
ably founded  upon  this  presumption.  But  therefore  it  is  impossible 
that  this  presumption  can  arise  from  probability.  "The  same  principle 
cannot  be  both  cause  and  effect  of  another;  and  this  is,  perhaps,  the 
only  proposition  concerning  that  relation,  which  is  either  intuitively 
or  demonstratively  certain"  (p.  90). 

Reason,  then,  which  can  create  no  new  idea,  is  unable,  either  through 
demonstrative  or  probable  arguments,  to  derive  for  us  the  concept  of 
causality.  The  idea  of  necessary  connection  has  been  reduced  to  the 
narrow  limits  of  a  bare  presumption. 

The  imagination  is  the  last  resort.  What  is  needed  is  some  kind 
of  psychological  basis  for  the  presumption  which  will  transform  it 
into  an  idea  of  necessary  connection.  In  other  words,  what  is  needed 
is  a  faculty  sufficiently  plastic  and  coherent  to  carrry  the  mind  beyond 
the  present  object  or  idea  to  an  idea  not  present,  but  resembling  the 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION    '  43 

usual  attendant  of  the  present  object  or  idea.  This  is  exactly  what 
imagination  seems  to  be  capable  of  doing,  for  "the  imagination  when 
set  into  any  train  of  thinking,  is  apt  to  continue,  even  when  its  object 
fails  it,  and  like  a  galley  put  in  motion  by  the  oars,  carries  on  its 
course  without  any  new  impulse"  (p.  198).  The  imagination  is  all  the 
more  inclined  to  do  this,  if  the  contiguous  and  successive  objects  have 
been  repeated.  The  more  frequent  the  repetition  of  any  given  con- 
tiguous and  successive  objects  has  been,  the  more  readily  the  imagina- 
tion passes  from  the  given  present  object  to  an  idea  resembling  its 
absent  attendant ;  that  is,  from  the  experienced  to  the  not-experienced. 
In  other  words,  constant  conjunction,  operating  upon  the  imagination 
bv  means  of  the  principles  of  the  association  of  ideas,  makes  possible 
what  neither  sense  nor  reason  could  give,  namely,  ideas  which  are  not 
given  in  and  through  the  present  experience,  but  which  resemble  the 
impressions  usually  had  in  conjunction  with  this  object  which  is  now 
the  sole  content  of  sense-experience.  When  the  mind  in  and  through 
the  carrying  or  propensive  quality  of  the  imagination  passes  from  a 
present  object  to  an  absent  attendant,  it  reasons  from  cause  to  effect,  or 
from  effect  to  cause. 

But  how  does  the  mind  know  that  it  reasons  thus  from  cause  to 
effect  ?  How  does  it  thereby  get  the  idea  of  causation  ?  "The  repe- 
tition of  perfectly  similar  instances  can  never  alone  give  rise  to  an 
original  idea"  (p.  163).  Imagination  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  do 
the  passing  from  cause  to  effect  or  from  effect  to  cause,  but  does  it 
make  it  possible  for  us  to  know  that  we  are  doing  it  ? 

Hume's  thought  takes  a  peculiar  turn  at  this  juncture,  which 
plainly  makes  the  idea  of  causation  completely  a  priori,  or  what  Locke 
would  call  an  idea  of  reflection,  an  "impression  of  reflection,"  to  use 
Hume's  phrase. 

Tho'  the  several  resembling  instances,  which  give  rise  to  the  idea  of 
power,  i.  e.,  to  the  idea  of  causation,  have  no  influence  on  each  other,  and  can 
never  produce  any  new  quality  in  the  object,  which  can  be  the  model  of  that 
idea,  yet  the  observation  of  this  resemblance  produces  a  new  impression  in 

the  mind,  which  is  its  real  model Necessity,  then,  is  the  effect  of  this 

observation,   and    is  nothing  but  an  internal  impression  of  the   mind,   or  a 

determination  to  carry  our  thoughts  from  one  object  to  another The 

idea  of  necessity  arises  from  some  impression.  There  is  no  impression  con- 
veyed by  our  senses,  which  can  give  rise  to  that  idea.  It  must,  therefore,  be 
derived  from  some  internal  impression,  or  impression  of  reflection.  There 
is  no  internal  impression  which  has  any  relation  to  the  present  business, 
but  that  propensity,  which  custom  produces,  to  pass  from  the  object  to  the 


44  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

idea  of  its  usual  attendant.  This  therefore  is  the  essence  of  necessity. 
Upon  the  whole,  necessity  is  something  that  exists  in  the  mind,  not  in 
objects;  nor  is  it  possible  for  us  ever  to  form  the  most  distant  idea  of  it, 
considered  as  a  quality  in  bodies.  Either  we  have  no  idea  of  necessity,  or 
necessity  is  nothing  but  that  determination  of  the  thought  to  pass  from 
causes  to  effects  and  from  effects  to  causes,  according  to  their  experienced 

union The  efficacy  or  energy  of  causes  is  neither  placed  in  the  causes 

themselves,  nor  in  the  deity,  nor  in  the  concurrence  of  these  two  principles ; 
but  belongs  entirely  to  the  soul,  which  considers  the  union  of  two  or  more 
objects  in  all  past  instances"  (pp.  164-6). 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  do  justice  to  Hume's  account  of  the  way  in 
which  we  arrive  at  the  ideas  of  continued  and  independent  existence 
of  objects.  But  the  course  of  reasoning  is  much  the  same  as  that 
involved  in  showing  how  we  arrive  at  the  idea  of  causation.  The 
imagination,  in  virtue  of  its  propensive  quality,  already  referred  to 
so  often,  is  able  to  bridge  over  the  gaps  between  interrupted  sense- 
perceptions,  and  produce  the  opinion  of  a  continued  existence  of 
body.  This  opinion  is  "  prior  to  that  of  its  distinct  existence,  and 
produces  that  latter  principle."  For  belief  in  the  continuity  and 
identity  of  that  which  to  our  sense-perceptions  appears  only  as  inter- 
rupted fragments,  must  give  rise  to  the  opinion  or  fiction  of  the 
imagination  that  this  continuity  and  identity  is  an  objective  reality,  or, 
rather,  "that  these  interrupted  perceptions  are  connected  by  a  real 
existence  of  which  we  are  insensible"  (p.  199). 

It  is  in  the  discussion  of  objectivity  that  reason  and  imagination 
come  to  blows  again.  And  the  idea  of  causation  has  a  falling  out  with 
the  idea  of  objectivity:  (1)  Reason  tells  us  that  "the  doctrine  of  the  inde- 
pendent existence  of  our  sensible  perceptions  is  contrary  to  the  plain- 
est experience.  This  leads  us  backward  upon  our  footsteps  to  perceive 
our  error  in  attributing  a  continued  existence  to  our  perceptions" 
(p.  210).  The  opinion  of  the  identity  of  interrupted  perceptions  "can 
never  arise  from  reason,  but  must  arise  from  the  imagination.  The 
imagination  is  seduced  into  such  an  opinion  only  by  means  of  the 
resemblance  of  certain  perceptions,  which  we  have  the  propension  to 
suppose  the  same"  (p.  209).  "The  imagination  tells  us  that  our 
resembling  perceptions  have  a  continued  and  uninterrupted  existence, 
and  are  not  annihilated  by  their  absence.  Reflection  tells  us  that 
even  our  resembling  perceptions  are  interrupted  in  their  existence, 
and  different  from  each  other"  (p.  215).  Reason,  paradoxically 
enough  —  reason,  which  is  appealed  to  only  with  general  rules  and 
conservative  principles  —  suddenly  appears  to  object  to  imagination's 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  45 

becoming  a  lawgiver,  a  legislator  of  universal  principles.  Reason,  I 
should  say,  appears  to  feel  that  its  vested  rights  in  the  actual  data  of 
experience  are  being  threatened.  (2)  Again,  "when  we  reason  from 
cause  and  effect,  we  conclude  that  neither  color,  sound,  taste,  nor 
smell  have  a  continued  and  independent  existence.  When  we  exclude 
these  sensible  qualities  there  remains  nothing  in  the  universe  which 
has  such  an  existence  "  (p.  231)* 

Imagination  has  made  possible  both  the  idea  of  causation  and  the 
idea  of  continued  and  independent  existence  —  it  is  the  only  faculty 
that  makes  them  possible  —  yet  these  two  ideas  are  found  to  be  incom- 
patible. Is  it  possible  that  a  deep-seated  conflict  lurks  within  the 
very  imagination  itself?     {Cf.  p.  266.) 

SEC.    IV.       CRITICISM. 

At  about  this  point  in  the  discussion,  difficulties,  contradictions, 
self-involved  criticism,  which  have  been  surging  below,  begin  to  come 
to  the  surface  and  threaten  to  wreck  all  that  has  been  accomplished. 

I  doubt  whether  there  is  in  any  literature  a  finer  specimen  of  a 
confession  of  philosophic  difficulties  than  the  concluding  chapter  of 
Book  I.  In  this  chapter,  and  indeed  throughout  the  Treatise,  Hume 
makes  it  so  evident  what  the  contradictions  are  that  we  are  in  danger 
of  missing  their  deeper  significance. 

The  following  are  brief  statements  of  some  of  the  difficulties  and 
contradictions  involved  in  the  Treatise: 

1 .  The  recurrent  doubt  as  to  whether  such  a  faculty  as  the  imagination 
can  furnish  the  basis  of  a  solid  and  rational  system  {cf.  pp.  198,  217,267). 

2.  The  ultimate  inexplicability  of  (a)  the  cause  of  impression  — 
"It  will  always  be  impossible  to  decide  with  certainty  whether  they 
arise  immediately  from  the  object,  or  are  derived  from  the  author  of 
our  being"  (p.  84)  —  and  the  ultimate  inexplicability  of  (6)  causal  con- 
junction. "We  cannot  penetrate  into  the  reason  of  the  conjunction. 
We  only  observe  the  thing  itself,  and  always  find  that  from  the  constant 
conjunction  the  objects  acquire  an  union  in  the  imagination."    (P. 93.) 

3.  Dilemma  between  illusion  of  the  imagination  and  ineptitude  of 
the  reason  —  between  false  reason  and  none  at  all  (pp.  267,  268). 

4.  "  Direct  and  total  opposition  betwixt  our  reason  and  our 
senses,"  involving  a  contradiction  within  the  imagination  itself  (p. 
231).  Imagination  makes  possible  both  the  idea  of  causation  and 
the  idea  of  continued  and  independent  existence.  But  when  reason 
employs  the  former  idea,  it  contradicts  the  latter.     (3)  and  (4)  taken 


46  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

together   have  a  three-cornered  conflict,  involving  reason,  sense,  and 
imagination. 

5.  ';In  short,  there  are  two  principles  which  I  cannot  render  con- 
sistent: nor  is  it  in  my  power  to  renounce  either  of  them,  viz.,  that  all 
our  distinct  perceptions  are  distinct  existences,  and  that  the  mind  never 
perceives  any  real  connection  among  distinct  existences.  Did  our  per- 
ceptions either  inhere  in  something  simple  and  individual,  or  did  the 
mind  perceive  some  real  connection  among  them,  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  the  case  "  (p.  636). 

6.  A  final  resort  to  intuitionalism  (pp.  164-6  and  629;  especially 
p.  629,  Appendix  to  Book  I,  Part  III,  sec.  6,  which  is  too  long  to  quote). 

I  have  said  that  it  was  an  easy  matter  to  find  these  difficulties  and 
contradictions,  and  many  others,  in  Hume's  Treatise,  but  it  is  no  easy 
matter  to  appreciate  their  true  significance.  Perhaps  one  of  their 
chief  functions  is  to  arouse  the  questioning  attitude  —  e.  g.,  does  not 
Hume  end  where  Spinoza  began,  namely,  with  discrediting  the  imagi- 
nation as  a  source  of  truth  ?  Or,  from  another  point  of  view,  is  there 
very  much  difference  between  Hume  and  Spinoza  as  to  the  practical 
outcome  of  their  systems  ?  What  matters  it,  after  all,  whether  at  the 
start  sensations  and  images  be  rejected  as  useless  lumber  or  accepted 
as  foundations,  if  the  outcome  and  final  resort  is  to  be  in  each  case 
an  appeal  to  a  mystic  or  intuitional  sense  of  immediate  contact  with 
reality?  What  is  the  use  of  all  this  machinery  of  ideas,  sensations, 
images,  emotions,  and  memories,  if  it  only  drives  one  to  a  resort 
where  it  never  has  been  needed,  and  never  will  be  ?  Have  the  phi- 
losophers attempted  to  discover  how  this  machinery  came  to  be,  and 
what  it  is  really  for?  This  last  question  seems  to  me  to  be  aiming 
closer  to  the  mark  than  any  other.  And  the  nature  of  a  solution  of 
these  difficulties  and  contradictions  will  be  found,  I  believe,  through 
an  inquiry  into  the  origin  and  evolution  of  psychological  machinery, 
and  its  function  in  experience. 

SEC.  V.       SUMMARY    COMPARISON    OF    SPINOZA    AND    HUME. 

The  answers  which  I  find  in  Hume  to  the  questions  proposed  at 
the  end  of  the  statement  of  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  imagination  are  as 
follows  : 

1.  Manifold,  fragmentary,  finite  particulars  and  the  imagination 
cannot  be  identified.  The  imagination  is  a  unifying  activity.  It 
possesses  the  power  of  rearranging,  of  recombining,  the  particulars  of 
sense-experience  which  are  given  to  it.     The  imagination  is  a  plastic,. 


HUME'S  THEORY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  47 

unifying,  propensive  element  in  whose  flow  particulars  are  held  and 
carried  along  ;  transcending  the  present,  it  gives  us  the  idea  of  cause 
and  effect,  and  of  the  distinct  and  continued  existence  of  the  objective 
world.  The  imagination  is  not  Spinoza's  reason  or  understanding, 
which  sees  things  sub  specie  aeternitatis ;  it  gives  us  time,  sequence  of 
phenomena,  progress. 

2.  Reason  and  the  imagination  are  often  opposed  to  one  another, 
but  they  could  not  long  exist  apart.  It  is  difficult,  because  of  the 
inconsistencies  in  Hume,  to  put  the  point  in  a  more  specific  form. 
Part  of  the  time,  at  any  rate,  his  statements  would  warrant  the  infer- 
ence that  reason  divorced  from  the  imagination  would  become  abso- 
lutely rigid,  inaccessible  to  the  molding  influence  of  custom;  and  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  imagination  divorced  from  reason  would  become 
mere  fancy.  Curiously  enough,  it  is  reason  with  Hume  that  informs 
us  that  our  perceptions  are  interrupted,  in  this  respect  corresponding 
exactly  to  the  imagination  with  Spinoza  ;  whereas  it  is  the  imagination 
with  Hume  that  gives  us  the  continuity  of  the  objective  world  to  which 
our  interrupted  perceptions  refer,  in  this  respect  corresponding  exactly 
to  reason  with  Spinoza.  Yet  in  another  view  of  the  two  categories 
they  correspond  respectively  each  to  each  :  with  both  Spinoza  and 
Hume  the  imagination  is  a  source  of  individual  variation,  whereas  the 
reason  can  originate  no  new  idea.  Reason  is  a  coming  to  conscious- 
ness of  laws  given  either  by  custom  (Hume)  or  by  God  (Spinoza). 
With  Hume,  however,  there  appears  to  be  no  error  necessarily  bound 
up  in  the  spontaneous  character  of  the  imagination.  To  be  sure, 
absolutely  undirected  by  custom  or  reason,  the  imagination  might 
become  mere  fiction.  But  as  it  is  actually  constituted,  its  spontaneity 
is  rather  a  propensive  quality,  an  amoeboid  movement,  passing  beyond 
this,  that,  and  the  other  sense-perception,  and  leaving  behind  the 
formal  fixity  of  reason. 

If  Hume  had  completely  solved  his  own  difficulties,  he  would  at 
the  same  time  have  answered  Spinoza  so  effectively  that  further  discus- 
sion of  the  matter  would  be  superfluous.  The  difficulties  which  he 
himself  recognized  are  those  which  some  follower  of  Spinoza,  had  he 
been  shrewd  enough,  might  have  pointed  out.  Such  a  follower  of 
Spinoza  would  probably  have  begun  with  that  passage  in  his  master's 
Ethics  which  demonstrates  how  general  ideas  arise  confusedly  in  the 
imagination  by  means  of  the  agglutination  of  overcrowded  images 
(cf.  p.  27);  and  he  would  probably  have  asked  how  Hume's  idea  of 
causation  differed   from  a  general  idea  so  formed.      He  miafht    have 


4§  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

pointed  out,  as  Hume  himself  did,  the  contradictory  character  of  the 
two  concepts  which  the  imagination  offered  to  reason — the  concept  of 
causation,  and  the  concept  of  continued  and  independent  existence  of 
objects.  And  he  might  have  asked  whence  the  validity  of  any  deliv- 
erance of  the  imagination,  seeing  that  it  is  constituted  ex  hypothesi,  not 
by  a  universal  act  of  thought,  but  by  particular  sense-perceptions, 
varying  in  quantity  and  in  quality  with  every  individual. 

Still,  in  spite  of  the  conflicts  between  these  two  treatments  of  the 
imagination,  both  agree  in  one  fundamental  point;  both  regard  the 
imagination  as  conditioned  from  without,  as  concerned  with  particulars 
given  to  it  ready-made.  Only  with  this  difference  :  Spinoza  regards 
the  imagination  as  that  aspect  of  the  mind  which  is  passive  with  refer- 
ence to  the  data  imposed  upon  it  from  without;  whereas  Hume  regards 
the  imagination  as  actively  recombining  its  data,  as  passing  from  one 
group  to  another,  as  anticipating  data  not  yet  actually  given.  I  believe 
this  fundamental  assumption  to  have  been  the  source,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  of  Spinoza's  one-sided  conception  of  the  imagination,  and  of 
his  negation  of  individuality;  and  also  a  source  of  the  difficulties  in 
which  Hume  found  himself — difficulties  which  any  answers  to  Spi- 
noza's position,  in  case  they  flow  from  the  same  assumption,  are  liable 
to  encounter. 

From  the  standpoint  of  this  whole  discussion,  the  chief  value  of 
the  theories  discussed  above  lies  in  the  problems  they  suggest  to  psy- 
chology. These  problems  may  be  summed  up  and  stated  once  more 
as  follows  : 

i.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  to  be  held  responsible  for  the 
detached,  fragmentary  particulars  of  experience  ?     (Spinoza.) 

2.  How  far  can  the  imagination  be  dissociated  from  the  under- 
standing or  reason  ?     (Spinoza.) 

3.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  a  unifying,  anticipating  activ- 
ity?    (Hume.) 

4.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  co-operative  with  reason  ? 
(Hume.) 

5.  Why  does  the  imagination  fail  to  give  a  firm  foundation  to  a 
rational  system  of  philosophy  —  and  especially  to  the  concepts  of 
causation  and  substance,  meaning  by  substance  continued  and  inde- 
pendent existence  ?     (Hume.) 

6.  Does  the  imagination  simply  receive  or  operate  upon  ready- 
made  data,  conveyed  to  it  through  the  sense-organs  ?  To  what  extent 
is  it  merely  receptive?  To  what  extent  is  it  creative  ?  (Spinoza  and 
Hume.) 


PART  III. 
PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION. 

SEC.     I.       THE    USE    OF    TERMS. 

In  the  interests  of  division  of  labor  it  may  sometimes  be  an  advan- 
tage to  distinguish  carefully  between  the  imagination  and  mental 
imagery,  according  to  whether  the  attention  of  the  observer  is  directed 
to  the  functional  or  to  the  structural  aspect  of  the  matter.  The  term 
"image,"  moreover,  seems  to  be  the  more  specific  and  scientific  term. 
Mr.  Wilfred  Lay,  in  his  monograph  on  mental  imagery,  draws  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  terms  which  is  useful  because  it  reflects  the  distinc- 
tion commonly  made  and  accepted  : 

By  imagination  is  here  meant  the  "faculty"  generally  called,  more  spe- 
cifically, creative  imagination.  It  is  that  which  makes  great  works  of  art, 
whether  they  be  paintings,  sculptures,  poems,  symphonies  or  cathedrals. 
The  possession  of  the  creative  imagination  implies  that  of  mental  imagery,  but 
not  vice  versa.  Imagination  is  something  abstract  and  indescribable  ;  imagery 
is  concrete  and  is  experienced  by  every  one.  Imagination  is  something  that 
cannot  be  itself  represented  in  mental  imagery  save  by  a  feeling ;  mental 
images  are,  on  the  other  hand,  quite  as  real  (not  objective,  however)  as 
sensations  themselves,  and  play  quite  as  important  a  role  in  our  lives.  The 
association  in  our  minds  of  the  creative  imagination  with  mental  imagery  is 
somewhat  far-fetched  from  the  real  nature  of  things,  and  is  the  result  of  the 
similarity  and  like  etymology  of  the  English  words  which  are  used  for  these 
two  aspects  of  mental  life.1 

If  I  fail  to  use  this  distinction  it  will  be  because  it  seems  unreal 
and  fallacious  when  carried  over  from  ordinary  discourse  into  psycho- 
logical analysis.  It  is  true  that  "imagination  is  something  abstract 
and  indescribable" — that  is,  apart  from  its  embodiment  in  images  or 
in  outward  physical  forms.  It  is  true  that  "the  possession  of  the 
creative  imagination  implies  that  of  mental  imagery."  But  if  we  add 
"not  vice  versa,"  we  are  drawing  an  arbitrary  line;  we  are  viewing  the 
matter  from  the  outside,  as  we  must  do  so  often  in  practical  emer- 
gencies when  we  say,  for  example,  such  and  such  people  have  no 
imagination,   while    certain    others    have.     Psychologically   speaking, 

i  Lay,  "Mental  Imagery"  (supplement  to  Psychological  Kc7/zew,Vo\.  II,  No.  3),  p.  2. 

49 


50  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

every  mental  image  is  creative  —  creative  in  the  same  sense  that  imagi- 
nation is  creative.  To  what  extent  this  or  that  image  may  modify 
overt  conduct  or  the  arrangement  of  objects  in  space  and  time  is  a 
question  of  becoming  aware  of  a  fact ;  it  is  not  a  question  of  becoming 
aware  of  a  principle.  In  making  this  assertion  I  am  anticipating,  of 
course,  a  line  of  argument  to  be  worked  out  later. 

SEC.    II.       RECENT     SPECIFIC     CONTRIBUTIONS     TO     THE     PSYCHOLOGY     OF 

THE    IMAGINATION. 

The  great  mass  of  material  which  has  been  put  at  the  service  of  the 
psychology  of  the  imagination  since  the  investigations  of  Fechner  and 
Galton  were  begun  has  been  chiefly  of  a  descriptive  character. 
Images  have  been  contrasted  to  and  compared  with  sense-perceptions. 
The  imagination  has  been  analyzed  into  various  types  —  visual,  audi- 
tory, etc. —  each  corresponding  to  a  sense-organ.  One  of  the  most  strik- 
ing facts  that  this  analysis  has  brought  to  light  is  the  wide  variance 
between  individuals  with  reference  to  the  prevailing  type  of  their 
imagery.  As  Professor  James  says  :  "  There  are  imaginations,  not  'the 
Imagination,'  and  they  must  be  studied  in  detail"  (Princ.  of  Psy.,  Vol. 
II,  p.  50).  Abundant  and  telling  evidence  of  this  fact  has  recently 
been  furnished  by  the  discussions  and  controversies  regarding  various 
types  of  word-imagery,  which  have  been  carried  on  by  Strieker,  Egger, 
Ballet,  Baldwin,  Dodge,  and  others.  The  testimony  of  Strieker,  for 
example,  appears  to  be  flatly  contradictory  to  that  of  Egger.  Strieker 
describes  his  internal  speech  as  being  purely  an  affair  of  articulatory- 
motor  images,  as  being  inseparably  bound  up  with  sensations  of  inner- 
vation of  his  lip  and  tongue  and  throat  muscles.  Egger,  on  the  other 
hand,  describes  his  internal  speech  as  being  purely  in  terms  of  audi- 
tory images.  All  this  serves  to  corroborate  and  give  new  emphasis  to 
Spinoza's  view  that  the  imagination  characterizes  the  individual  in  his 
differences  from  all  other  individuals. 

Attempts  have  been  made,  especially  by  French  psychologists,  to 
clothe  this  bare  fact  of  individual  variation  with  social  meaning. 
Arreat,  in  his  work  entitled  Me/noire  et  imagination:  peintres, 
musiciens,  pokes  et  orateurs  (Paris,  1895),  first  analyzes  memory  into 
motor,  visual,  auditory,  emotional,  and  intellectual  types  ;  then  finds  a 
type  of  imagination  corresponding  to  each,  and  attempts  to  show  how 
this  varies  in  nature  and  development  with  the  aptitude  and  vocation 
of  the  individual.  Painters,  for  example  (cf.  Chap.  II)  have  more 
definite   and  detailed  visual  images,  and   musicians   more   systematic 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  51 

and  accurate  tone-images,  than  ordinary  men.  The  intellectual  type 
is  feeble  in  artists,  for  example,  who  are  by  nature  receptive  and  emo- 
tional. Still  more  explicit  in  the  interpretation  of  individual  differ- 
ences is  Queyrat  in  his  work  entitled  IS  imagination  et  ses  varietes  chez 
V enfant:  etude  de  psychologie  experimental  appliquee  a  V education  intel- 
lectuellc  (Paris,  1 895).  Queyrat  analyzes  the  imagination  into  three  types 
—  visual,  auditory,  and  motor.  His  thesis  is  that  predominance  of  a 
certain  type  determines  aptitude  for  science,  art,  or  professional  life,  as 
the  case  may  be.  Hence  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  educator  to  dis- 
cover the  predominant  type  in  the  child,  and  thus  to  direct  him  intel- 
ligently in  his  choice  of  a  vocation,  at  the  same  time  developing  other 
types  harmoniously.  ("  La  predominance  dans  un  esprit  d'un  ordre 
d'images  lui  assure  des  aptitudes  prononcees  pour  une  science,  un  art, 
une  profession.  Le  role  de  l'educateur  est  done  de  s'appliquer  a  la 
reconnaitre,  afin,  s'il  y  trouve  real  avantage,  de  possesser  l'enfant  dans 
la  voie  que  lui  trace  la  nature"  (p.  156). 

Further  developments  in  this  direction  —  that  is,  in  the  direction  of 
giving  an  immediate  and  specific  social  significance  to  individual 
variations  of  mental  imagery  —  would  be  in  the  nature  of  detailed 
application.  And  a  thorough  test  of  the  hypothesis  would  involve 
experiments  on  children  and  adults  extending  over  a  considerable 
period  of  time.  I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  of  any  such  experi- 
ments. Hence  the  hypothesis  can  be  criticised  here  only  as  to  its 
logical  merits.  The  attractiveness  of  the  hypothesis  lies  in  its  possi- 
bility of  affording  a  positive  interpretation  of  individual  variation,  by 
connecting  the  variation  with  division  of  labor  in  society.  The  special 
type  of  imagery  which  an  individual  possesses,  especially  if  he  pos- 
sesses it  to  an  unusual  degree,  makes  him  all  the  more  fit,  the  hypothesis 
could  readily  be  stretched  to  say,  to  discharge  some  particular  function 
in  the  social  organism.  But  the  hypothesis  is  broad  at  the  expense  of 
depth.  It  is  as  superficial  as  it  is  attractive.  It  is  premature.  On  the 
face  of  it,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  associating  a  predominant  type 
of  mental  imagery  with  a  call  to  a  particular  vocation — say  the  visual 
type  with  the  vocation  of  the  artist  —  than  there  is  in  associating  red 
hair  with  a  fiery  temper.  It  is  true  that  there  may  be  some  deep- 
lying  relation  between  the  two ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that,  until  this 
relation  has  been  made  out,  the  comparison  is  merely  one  of  superficial 
and  inconstant  resemblance  —  I  say  inconstant,  because  inquiries  have 
revealed  many  exceptions  to  the  supposed  rule.1 

■C/.  Galton,  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  pp.  88  and  94.  Cf.  Lay,  Mental  Imagery,  pp. 
16-24. 


52  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

Ribot,  in  his  recent  and  suggestive  work  on  imagination  (Essai  sur 
V imagination  creatrice,  Paris,  1900),  criticises  the  analysis  of  the  imagi- 
nation into  the  various  types  as  illusory  and  futile.  Such  an  analysis, 
he  says,  does  no  more  than  point  out  the  materials  with  which  the 
imagination  works.  It  has  no  more  meaning  than  a  classification  of 
architectural  structures  on  the  basis  of  the  materials  employed  ;  say,  a 
classification  of  monuments  into  those  made  of  stone,  brick,  iron,  wood, 
etc.,  without  reference  to  differences  in  style  (p.  150).  Ribot  then 
proposes  the  following  classification  of  the  principal  types  of  imagina- 
tion : 

i.   Plastic. 

2.  Diffluent. 

3.  Mystic. 

4.  Scientific. 

5.  Practical  and  mechanical. 

6.  Commercial. 

7.  Utopian. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  reproduce  his  definitions  of  these  types;  the 
essentially  social  and  objective  reference  of  the  criterion  of  the  classifi- 
cation is  evident.  Its  value  and  its  limitations  fall  together.  Its 
value,  to  say  nothing  of  the  richness  of  detail  with  which  Ribot  has 
illuminated  his  pages,  lies  in  the  truth  that  the  imagination  does  finally 
express  itself  in  an  objective  world  of  fact.  Ribot  sums  up  this  truth 
in  the  closing  sentence  of  the  book :  "  L'imagination  constructive 
penetre  la  vie  tout  entiere,  individuelle  et  collective,  speculation  et 
pratique,  sous  toutes  ses  formes  :  elle  est  partout."  Its  limitations  lie 
in  the  disregard  of  psychological  processes,  sensorial  or  otherwise,  that 
lead  up  to  the  objective,  overt  results;  its  limitations  lie  also  in  the 
assumption  that  the  sense  elements  involved  in  the  imagination  are  so 
much  "  material,"  on  and  with  which  the  creative  powers  work.  Ribot 
is  also  to  be  classed  with  Spinoza  and  Hume,  in  so  far  as  he  regards 
sense  elements  merely  as  the  given,  the  raw  stuff,  the  data  of  experience. 

A  conception  which,  logically  speaking,  enables  Ribot  to  analyze 
and  classify  the  various  types  of  imagery  on  an  objective  basis,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  regard  the  reproduced  sense  elements  as  so  much 
"material,"  is  the  conception  of  the  motor  aspect  of  imagery.  "La 
nature  motrice  de  l'imagination  constructive  "  is  the  title  of  the  intro- 
ductory chapter,  and  is  a  theme  that  reappears  again  and  again 
throughout  the  entire  work.  "  Essayons  de  suivre  pas  a  pas  la  transi- 
tion qui  conduit  de  la  reproduction   pure  et  simple  a  la  creation,  en 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  53 

montrant  la  persistance  et  la  preponderance  de  l'element  moteur  a 
mesure  qu'on  s'eleve  de  la  repetition  a  l'invention  "  (p.  i).  Even  in  a 
purely  reproductory  image  a  motor  element  is  present,  Ribot  would 
say,  for  such  an  image  is  a  residue  of  an  anterior  perception  ;  and  per- 
ception always  involves  movements.  In  virtue  of  this  motor  element 
the  image  always  tends  to  find  outward  expression.  "  .  .  .  .  l'element 
moteur  de  l'image  tend  a  lui  faire  perdre  son  caractere  purement 
interieur,  a  l'objectiver,  a  l'exteriorer,  a  la  projecter  hors  de  nous  "  (p.  2). 
But  Ribot  fails  to  see  anything  creative  in  this  tendency  of  the  image 
to  pass  into  an  act.  He  distinguishes  sharply  between  reprodutive  and 
creative  imagination.  The  criterion  is  the  objective  one.  The  repro- 
ductive imagination  is  that  which  gives  rise  only  to  the  repetition  of 
some  act  or  object.  To  be  creative,  the  imagination  must  result  in 
something  new. 

Ribot's  work  is  a  contribution  to  sociology  rather  than  to  psy- 
chology. Or  it  might  be  described  as  embodying  a  type  of  social 
psychology  in  which  "  l'element  moteur "  forms  a  sort  of  bridge 
between  two  sets  of  phenomena — one  psychical  or  subjective,  the 
other  social  or  objective.  Such  a  conception  as  this  marks  an  advance 
over  the  conception  previously  referred  to  —  the  conception  that  there 
is  an  immediate,  qualitative  correspondence  between  certain  types  of 
mental  imagery  and  certain  activities  or  vocations.  It  gives  us  a 
glimpse  of  a  mechanism  between  image  and  result,  idea  and  fact.  I 
am  not  attempting  to  express  an  appreciation  of  Ribot's  work  as  a 
whole,  with  its  clear,  though  not  always  convincing,  analyses,  and  its 
suggestive  comparisons.  I  merely  wish  to  use  certain  points  empha- 
sized in  the  work ;  namely,  the  fact  that  an  image,  whether  visual, 
auditory,  or  tactual,  is  always  motor;  and  the  fact  that  by  virtue  of 
this  motor  phase  an  image  always  tends  to  objectify  itself  in  the  world 
of  fact.  And  yet  there  is  nothing  novel,  or  strikingly  "creative,"  in 
these  points.  They  are  simply  expressions  or  applications  of  the  cur- 
rent doctrine  of  sensori-motor  and  ideo-motor  reactions. 

What  might  be  called  the  official  work  on  the  psychology  of  the 
imagination  has  not,  it  seems  to  me,  brought  to  light  results  that  have 
a  very  direct  bearing  upon  the  problems  raised  in  our  discussion  of 
the  imagination  as  treated  by  Spinoza  and  Hume.  This  cannot  be 
urged  as  a  criticism  against  the  careful  descriptive  work  that  has  been 
done,  nor  against  the  brilliant  interpretations  of  recent  French  writers. 
But  a  solution  will  have  to  be  sought  in  and  through  other  phases  of 
psychology. 


54  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

SEC.    III.       A    PSYCHOLOGICAL    ANALYSIS    OF    IMAGE-DEVELOPMENT. 

In  this  part  of  the  discussion  I  am  especially  indebted  to  Profes- 
sor Dewey's  reinterpretation  of  the  doctrine  of  sensori-motor  reaction, 
as  found  notably  in  his  article  on  the  "Reflex- Arc  Concept  in  Psy- 
chology" {Psychological  Review,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  357). 

The  fundamental  assumption  with  Spinoza  and  Hume  —  and  with 
Ribot  as  well  —  the  assumption  that  the  sense  element  in  experi- 
ence is  externally  imposed,  is  a  datum  ;  an  "  impression,"  to  use 
Hume's  word  ;  "material,"  to  use  Ribot's — suggests  the  point  at  which 
analysis  may  be  most  effectively  directed.  If  the  assumption  be 
granted,  then  we  have  either  of  two  alternatives  presented,  according 
as  we  regard  the  recipient  "  faculty"  of  the  mind  as  passive  respecting 
its  data,  or  as  active.  With  Spinoza  .we  may  regard  it  as  passive,  and 
the  problems  already  indicated  (p.  48)  will  arise,  the  most  pressing  of 
which  is  perhaps  the  problem  of  individuality.  What  can  be  done  for 
a  self  that  is  half  bond  and  half  free  —  half  imagination  and  half 
reason  ?  Is  it  a  self  at  all  ?  It  takes  a  thoroughgoing  empiricist,  or 
associationist,  like  Herbert  Spencer,  for  example,  to  push  this  concep- 
tion past  Spinoza  and  on  to  its  logical  ultimatum,  completely  general- 
izing the  method  of  forming  the  individual  out  of  a  continual  raining 
in  of  sense-impressions  —  but  at  the  expense  of  a  complete  dissipation 
of  individuality.  Spinoza  was  a  semi-Spencerian.  Or  with  Hume  we 
may  regard  the  imagination  as  actively  recombining  and  projecting  its 
sense  data;  and  another  set  of  difficulties  will  arise,  chief  among  which 
is  the  wholly  irresponsible  character  of  the  imagination  thus  conceived 
apart  from  its  material.  In  short,  the  assumption,  in  whichever  way  it 
is  taken,  creates  more  difficulties  than  it  solves. 

A  counter-assumption  which  I  wish  to  test  on  this  group  of  prob- 
lems is  the  assumption  that  a  sensation  is  not  a  given  element,  a 
datum,  but  appears  as  the  locus  of  a  problem.  It  marks  or  locates  the 
point  in  the  organic  activity  of  an  individual  where  the  strain  is  great- 
est, where  demand  for  readjustment  is  most  acute.  A  sensation  is  the 
way  in  which  strain  seems  to  the  individual  —  in  that  sense  it  is  seem- 
ing rather  than  being.  It  is  the  appeal  which  the  demand  for  read- 
justment makes  to  the  individual  —  in  that  sense  it  is  particular  rather 
than  universal.  It  does  not  presuppose  organic  activity  as  a  basis.  It 
is  organic  activity  come  to  consciousness  in  the  process  of  becoming 
more  organic.  The  so-called  reflex  arc  is  not  sensori-motor  or  ideo- 
motor,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  made  up  of  two  joints  or  segments,  one 
of  which  is  sensory  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  the  other  motor.     The 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION 

"  reflex  arc,"  or,  as  it  has  been  more  aptly  termed,  the  "  organic  cir- 
cuit "  of  stimulus  and  response,  is  either  all  sensory  or  all  motor, 
depending  upon  whether  it  is  a  matter  of  immediate  experience,  or  a 
matter  of  mediate  or  inferred  experience  ;  depending  upon  whether 
it  is  my  experience  from  my  point  of  view,  in  which  case  it  is  sensory; 
or  my  experience  from  your  point  of  view,  in  which  case  it  is  motor. 
A  kinsesthetic  sensation  is  as  much  a  sensation  as  a  visual  or  audi- 
tory sensation.  And,  conversely,  a  visual  sensation  involves  motor 
adjustments  as  much  as  a  kinesthetic  sensation. 

To  say  that  a  sensation  appears  as  the  locus  of  a  problem  does  not 
mean  that  every  sensation  is  to  be  so  regarded.  A  sensation  may  be 
simply  the  point  of  least  resistance  in  some  habitual  attitude  or  response 
which  is  anything  but  problematic.  The  barking  of  a  distant  dog  breaks 
in  upon  my  stream  of  consciousness  as  I  write  these  lines.  Since  I  have 
no  jurisdiction  whatever  over  that  dog,  the  barking  is  barely  perceived  ; 
in  other  words,  only  the  most  habitual  and  elementary  forms  of  audi- 
tory perception  and  interpretation  are  brought  into  play.  The  case 
might  be  very  different,  however,  if  I  knew  that  I  could  exercise  some 
sort  of  control  over  the  dog.  In  that  event  I  might  allow  myself  to  be 
irritated  by  the  barking.  The  more  I  felt  that  it  was  in  my  power  to 
do  something  to  check  the  disturbance,  the  more  the. sensation  in  ques- 
tion would  appear  to  be  the  locus  of  a  problem.  The  rattling  of  a  win- 
dow, the  flapping  of  a  curtain,  the  squeaking  of  a  sign-board,  are  often 
almost  entirely  ignored,  until  it  occurs  to  one  that  something  can  be 
done  to  stop  the  noise  ;  then,  unless  the  suggestion  is  followed  up  with- 
out delay,  the  noise  is  liable  to  become  a  source  of  irritation,  a  locus  of 
a  problem.  I  doubt  whether  Carlyle  had  been  so  much  disturbed  as 
he  was  by  the  cackling  of  his  neighbors'  fowls,  if  there  had  not  been 
some  suggestion,  however  remote,  of  the  possibility  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's 
purchasing  the  offenders,  as  she  finally  did,  and  silencing  them  forever. 
Instead  of  its  being  true  that  a  sensation  is  a  datum  given  from  with- 
out, it  is  more  true  to  the  facts  of  experience  to  say  that  when  a  sensa- 
tion is  so  regarded  it  is  liable  to  be  annihilated.  Wholly  from  with- 
out ?  Well,  then  it  does  not  concern  me;  I  can't  help  it.  It  is  only 
when  I  feel  myself  to  be  in  some  way  responsible  for  a  sensation ;  it  is 
only  when  it  arises  within  my  range  of  activities,  my  habits  of  control, 
that  it  persists  and  grows  more  intense. 

The  greatest  difficulty  that  stands  in  the  way  of  this  assumption  or 
hypothesis  as  to  the  nature  of  sensation  would  seem  to  be  the  objection 
that  it  is  absolutely  idealistic  —  if  sensation  is  not  given  from  without, 


56  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

then  it  must  be  given  or  produced  from  within  —  purely  idealistic, 
subject  to  call,  so  to  speak,  and  therefore  not  in  any  degree  problem- 
atic. This  difficulty  or  objection  is  really  nothing  but  the  same  old 
assumption  over  again,  though  in  an  apparently  new  form.  It  arises 
because  of  the  old  tendency  to  deal  with  sensation  as  if  it  were  a 
datum,  if  not  given  from  without,  then,  forsooth,  given  from  within. 
If  the  externally  given  sensation  is  to  be  regarded  as  materialistic,  and 
the  internally  given  sensation  as  idealistic,  then  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  present  hypothesis  it  is  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  whether 
a  materialistic  or  idealistic  turn  be  given  to  the  machinery.  The  pres- 
ent hypothesis  simply  takes  sensation  where  it  finds  it,  and  attempts  to 
give  it  a  functional  interpretation.  One  of  the  commonplaces  of  psy- 
chology is  that  sensation  cannot  be  defined  save  in  terms  of  itself. 
Carry  this  commonplace  farther  and  the  definition  may  be  reached 
that  sensation  is,  functionally,  simply  experience  defining  itself  to  itself. 
It  may  relieve  the  last  statement  of  some  of  its  metaphysical 
abstractness  to  consider  the  classification  of  sensations  employed  by 
several  modern  psychologists,  notably  by  Kiilpe.  By  him  sensations 
are  classified  into  those  peripherally  excited  and  into  those  centrally 
excited,  or  into  sensations  as  such,  and  images  or  ideas.  This  distinc- 
tion between  peripherally  and  centrally  excited  sensations  seems  to  be 
made  on  a  purely  structural  or  even  anatomical  basis.  Sensations 
peripherally  excited  are  psychical  phenomena  which  necessarily  involve 
the  stimulation  of  a  sense-organ.  Those  centrally  excited  are  psychi- 
cal phenomena  which  necessarily  involve  the  activity  of  some  portion 
of  the  central  nervous  system,  but  not  necessarily  the  stimulation  of  a 
corresponding  sense-organ — the  phenomenon  may  be  experienced 
even  though  the  sense-organ  is  no  longer  in  existence.  The  distinc- 
tion does  not  deny  the  primary  unity  of  the  two  sides,  nor  their  subse- 
quent interdependence,  but  it  does  assert  that  they  may  become 
anatomically  distinct  from  one  another.  Yet,  being  a  structural  or 
anatomical  distinction,  it  may  furnish  the  loci  for  a  functional  restate- 
ment. It  suggests  a  division  of  labor,  as  well  as  a  difference  of 
position.  Even  in  its  present  form  it  is  a  criticism  upon  the  traditional 
view,  held  by  Hobbes  and  his  successors,  that  a  mental  image  is  a  less 
vivid  or  decayed  sense-impression.  "  The  correctness  of  the  assump- 
tion that  images  are  merely  weaker  sense-perceptions  has  never  been 
demonstrated,"  says  Kiilpe,  "and  the  constant  assumption  has  done  as 
much  as  anything  else  to  render  the  department  barren  and  schematic  " 
{Outlines  of  Psy.,  p.  169).     But  any  structural  statement  lays  itself  open 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  57 

to  just  such  a  criticism  as  this.  It  has  to  be  supplemented,  and  pos- 
sibly corrected,  by  a  functional  or  physiological  statement.  How  did 
the  two  loci  ox  foci  of  sensation  arise  ?  What  is  their  function  in  main- 
taining the  life-process  ?  Under  what  conditions  does  an  "  organic 
circuit"  become  an  organic  ellipse  ? 

The  problem  can  be  most  readily  approached,  I  believe,  from  the 
genetic  and  physiological  side. 

It  is  a  law  of  growth,  on  the  physiological  side,  that  habits  previ- 
ously worked  out  independently  of  one  another  shall  be  combined, 
co-ordinated,  to  form  a  higher,  more  organic  unity,  which  in  its  turn 
may  become  a  habit,  subject  to  combination  with  other  habits  :  and 
so  on  indefinitely,  or  until  growth  ceases.  This  form  of  combination 
is  not  a  mechanical  putting  together;  it  is  organic,  since  each  member 
of  the  co-ordination,  each  previously  independent  habit,  undergoes 
reconstruction  and  also  gains  in  efficiency  through  its  interaction  with 
the  other  members  of  the  co-ordination.  To  illustrate,  take  the  case  of 
learning  to  swim.  There  are  habits  of  pushing  objects  aside  with  the 
hands  and  arms,  habits  of  kicking,  habits  of  balancing  the  body,  etc., 
which  have  been  worked  out  independently  of  one  another,  at  least  so 
far  as  the  act  of  swimming  is  concerned.  They  are  the  necessary  con- 
stituents of  the  act  or  habit  of  swimming  that  is  to  be  ;  but  simply 
making  them  work  together  is  not  sufficient;  they  must  be  co-ordi- 
nated. Each  habit  has  to  be  made  over  somewhat,  reconstructed, 
through  its  interaction  with  the  other  habits  involved.  Each  gains  a 
new  efficiency,  in  proportion  as  the  act  of  swimming  is  mastered — as 
the  co-ordination  is  realized.  And  this  co-ordination,  when  realized, 
tends  to  become  a  habit,  capable  in  turn  of  playing  a  part  in  some 
larger  co-ordination  yet  to  be. 

Two  distinct  factors  of  this  law  of  growth  are  habits  and  co-ordina- 
tion ;  and  bound  up  with  these  is  consciousness.  Between  habits,  the 
achievements  of  the  past,  and  co-ordination,  the  possibility  of  the 
future,  stands  the  "specious  present"  of  consciousness.  Out  of  this 
"specious  present"  of  consciousness  with  reference  to  habits  on  the  one 
side,  and  to  co-ordination  on  the  other,  arise  the  two  foci  of  sensation, 
the  peripherally  and  the  centrally  excited  sensations  —  sensations  as 
such  and  images  or  ideas.  Sensations  as  such  answer  to  habits,  which 
are  not  quite  what  they  were,  because  they  are  conflicting  or  inade- 
quately functioning  under  the  stress  of  unwonted  conditions.  The 
image  answers  to  the  co-ordination  that  is  to  be,  provided  it  is  possible 
to  anticipate  the  co-ordination. 


58  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

As  to  the  possibility,  on  the  physiological  side,  of  anticipating  a 
co-ordination.  The  sensory  areas  or  centers  of  an  infant  are  unco-ordi- 
nated.  According  to  Flechsig,  the  mechanism  for  their  co-ordination  is 
lacking  until  the  medullary  sheaths  of  the  connecting  fibers  or  associa- 
tion centers  ripen.  "  Noch  einen  Monat  nach  der  Geburt  sind  die 
geistigen  Centren  unreif,  ganzlich  bar  des  Nervenmarkes,  wahrend  die 
Sinnescentrenschon  vorher — ein  jedes  fiir  sich,vollig  unabhangig  von 
den  andern  —  herangereift  sind"  (Gehirn  mid  Seek,  p.  23).  Until  the 
connecting  fibers  ripen  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  eye 
activity,  say,  influences  in  any  organic  way  the  hand  or  ear  activity, 
unless  it  be  through  some  subtle  modification  of  that  dark  continent  of 
inner  environment,  the  blood  supply.  Naturally  only  random  move- 
ments and  instinctive  acts  are  possible.  The  fingers  close  in  response 
to  a  stimulus  of  the  palm.  In  the  same  way,  probably,  the  muscles  of 
the  eye  respond  to  a  stimulus  of  the  retina.  But  neither  hand  nor  eye 
movement  can  affect  each  other  organically,  until  the  nerve-fibers  con- 
necting the  eye  and  hand  tracts  become  functionally  mature  and 
active.  It  seems  probable  that  each  type  of  movement  develops  as  far 
as  its  isolation  will  permit  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  anything 
corresponding  to  a  mental  image  could  arise  during  this  period.  With 
the  ripening  of  the  connecting  fibers,  however,  comes  the  possibility 
of  the  image.  The  eye-hand  activity  which  now  arises  is  a  more  com- 
plex activity,  and  one  capable  of  a  higher  degree  of  organization,  than 
either  the  eye  or  the  hand  activity  by  itself.  At  first  each  activity  is 
an  accidental  stimulus  to  the  other  ;  it  shoots  into  the  other,  so  to 
speak,  at  random.  Only  through  such  chance  associations,  followed 
by  repeated  trials  and  interaction,  does  the  higher  organization  of  the 
eye-hand  activity  come  into  existence  and  establish  itself.  In  the  case 
of  the  painter,  to  take  an  extreme  example,  this  process  of  perfecting 
the  organization  of  the  eye-hand  activity  may  be  the  work  of  a  lifetime. 

The  Anlage  of  the  image  thus  approached  from  the  genetic  and 
physiological  side  is  capable  of  being  generalized  and  of  having  its 
mechanism  stated  in  the  following  terms  :  At  first,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  the  activity  takes  place  in  a  wholly  unanticipated,  acci- 
dental way.  There  comes  a  time,  however,  with  reference  to  a  given 
stimulus,  when  a  tension  is  bound  to  arise  between  the  eye  and  the 
hand  activity  as  independent  reactions  and  the  eye-hand  activity  as  a 
co-ordinated  reaction.  It  is  not  that  the  original  eye  activity  is 
opposed  to  the  original  hand  activity  as  such.  But  it  is  a  conflict 
between  the  old  way  of  doing  things,  represented  by  the  instinctive 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  59 

reaction  of  the  eye  activity  as  independent  and  the  instinctive  reaction 
of  the  hand  activity  as  independent,  and  the  new  way  of  doing  things, 
represented  by  the  eye-hand  co-ordination.  In  describing  this  tension 
we  are  at  the  same  time  describing  consciousness,  and  also,  what  is 
more  to  our  purpose,  the  origin  and  function  of  the  image  in  its  rela- 
tion to  sensation.  (I  am  using  the  terms  "image"  and  "sensation  " 
as  equivalent  respectively  to  centrally  and  peripherally  excited  sensa- 
tions.) The  image  is  the  incipient  eye-hand  co-ordination  in  its 
tension  with  the  incipient  eye  and  hand  reactions.  The  image  stands 
for  the  persistence  of  previously  haphazard  co-ordinations  ;  the  sensa- 
tions stand  for  immediate  eye  and  hand  reaction.  The  image  is  the 
incipient  eye-hand  co-ordination  in  its  tension  with  the  incipient  eye 
and  hand  reactions.  The  sensations  are  the  incipient  eye  and  hand 
reaction  in  tension  with  the  incipient  eye-hand  co-ordination.  (I  am 
not  using  the  terms  "  co-ordination  "  and  "  reaction  "  to  mark  a  radical 
distinction.  Co-ordination  is  simply  a  more  complex,  more  mediated 
reaction.  Reaction  denotes  the  more  direct  and  immediate  response.) 
The  greater  the  tension,  the  more  comprehensive  the  image,  and  the 
more  definite  the  sensation. 

Professor  James,  in  his  chapter  on  "  Will,"  has  shown  how  all  volun- 
tary action  is  a  function  of  the  image  or  sensation  attended  to,  though 
it  seems  necessary  to  him  to  postulate  in  addition  a  fiat,  a  sort  of  "  le 
roi  le  veut."  Our  hypothesis  can  accept  and  utilize  in  toto  Professor 
James's  analysis  of  the  mechanism  of  volition  without  at  the  same  time 
being  obliged  to  use  the  remnant  of  monarchy  which  is  bound  up  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  fiat.  Activity  is  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  the 
self.  The  problem  is  how  this  activity  shall  be  organized  and 
expended.  The  image  is  the  element  of  control  as  against  sensation 
or  tendencies  to  immediate  response.  It  represents  a  more  adequate 
mode  of  freeing  activity  as  against  merely  impulsive  or  instinctive 
action.  Yet  both  image  and  sensation  appear  as  the  problematic 
points  in  the  situation.  The  co-ordination  can  be  expressed  only 
through  the  reconstruction  of  relatively  partial  reactions.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  asserting  themselves  as  sensations  these  reactions  at  the 
same  time  define  the  condition  which  the  more  highly  organized 
activity  must  meet  and  utilize.  The  process  of  consciously  recon- 
structing previous  types  of  reaction,  and  the  tension  between  co-ordi- 
nation and  reaction  which  appears  as  a  conflict  between  two  sets  of 
sensations  —  centrally  and  peripherally  excited — are  equivalent  expres- 
sions. The  activity  which  reconstructs,  or  which  defines  itself  to  itself 
in  sensations,  or  which  finds  expression  in  overt  movements,  is  one. 


60  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

I  have  implied  that  the  image  is  the  persistence  of  previously  hap- 
hazard co-ordination.  This  would  seem  to  mean  that  the  image  is 
simply  a  revival.  Taken  in  itself,  this  would  be  true,  but  the  image  is 
not  to  be  taken  in  itself;  it  has  to  be  taken  in  its  relations,  in  its  ten- 
sion, to  previously  isolated  reactions.  With  reference  to  them  it  is  not 
a  revival ;  they  are  rather  the  revivals.  It  is  an  anticipation  of  a  fuller 
and  freer  activity  into  which  these  previously  isolated  activities  may 
pass,  and  find  organic  membership. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  how  close  this  is  to  the  view  which  Hume 
took  of  the  imagination.  The  value  of  Hume's  analysis  with  reference 
to  this  point  has  not  been  recognized,  and  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 
The  "propensive,"  projective,  anticipatory  character  of  the  image  — 
that  is  precisely  its  function,  as  Hume  clearly  saw.  It  is  interesting 
to  recall,  in  passing,  Spinoza's  identification  of  the  imagination  with 
the  gift  of  prophecy.  True,  Spinoza  placed  the  emphasis  on  the 
receptive,  sense-content  aspect  of  the  imagination,  rather  than  on  its 
forward,  anticipatory  movement.  And  yet,  if  prophecy  deserves  the 
name,  it  is  a /<?/-<?telling. 

We  cannot  rest  the  case,  however,  on  this  somewhat  speculative 
attempt  to  approach  the  problem  from  the  genetic  and  physiological 
side.  It  was  simply  an  attempt  to  get  the  benefit  of  a  view  of  the 
matter  from  without  before  looking  at  it  from  within ;  before  looking 
at  it  as  it  appears  in  the  individual's  stream  of  consciousness;  that  is, 
before  approaching  the  problem  from  the  psychological  side.  Doubt- 
less it  would  be  either  gratuitous  or  else  "metaphysical"  to  develop 
the  point  which  underlies  this  discussion,  namely,  that  these  two 
sides,  the  physiological  and  the  psychological,  have  little  or  no  signifi- 
cance apart  from  one  another,  and  that  both  are  abstractions  arising  in 
one  activity,  in  one  life-experience.  The  point  more  relevant  to  this 
discussion  is  concerned  with  how  the  relations  between  sensations  and 
image  are  experienced;  and  finally,  what  is  the  consciously  experienced 
relation  between  what  we  call  the  imagination  and  reason.  This  is  not 
to  be  concerned  with  how  sensations  are  received  from  things,  nor 
how  "brain  paths"  are  wrought  —  these  are  questions  rather  of  psycho- 
physics  or  of  metaphysics  —  but  the  problem  is  to  take  sensations  and 
images  as  we  find  them  and  to  seek  what  is  their  function  in  experi- 
ence. This  is  in  harmony,  I  believe,  with  the  attitude  taken  by  Locke 
when  he  said,  at  the  beginning  of  his  Introduction  ; 

I  shall  not  at  present  meddle  with  the  physical  consideration  of  the  mind; 
or  trouble  myself  to  examine,  wherein  its  essence  consists,  or  by  what  motions 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  61 

of  our  spirits,  or  alterations  of  our  bodies,  we  come  to  have  any  sensations  by 
our  organs,  or  any  ideas  in  our  understandings;  and  whether  those  ideas  do 
in  their  formation,  any,  or  all  of  them,  depend  on  matter  or  no  :  These  are 
speculations,  which,  however  curious  and  entertaining,  I  shall  decline,  as 
lying  out  of  my  way  in  the  design  I  am  now  upon.  It  shall  suffice  to  my 
present  purpose,  to  consider  the  discerning  faculties  of  a  man,  as  they  are 
employed  about  the  objects,  which  they  have  to  do  with. 

"To  consider  the  discerning  faculties  of  a  man,"  and  to  consider 
them  with  reference  to  the  carrying  on  of  the  business  of  life,  whatever 
that  may  chance  to  be,  or  "as  they  are  employed  about  the  objects 
with  which  they  have  to  do,"  is  to  be  concerned  with  a  psychological 
problem  close  to  the  one  we  now  have  in  hand. 

I  shall  try  to  be  brief,  for  the  points  I  wish  to  bring  to  attention 
are  too  obvious  to  need  extended  treatment ;  they  are  all  on  the 
descriptive  rather  than  on  the  explanatory  level. 

i.  The  experience  of  a  sensation  of  some  kind  is  essential  to  the 
carrying  on  of  any  habitual  activity,  and  a  fortiori  of  any  unaccus- 
tomed activity.  By  habitual  activity  I  mean  an  acquired  or  learned 
activity,  one  that  has  passed  through  the  readaptive  process  of  con- 
sciousness, such  as  walking,  writing,  etc.;  and  I  would  exclude,  of 
course,  all  purely  reflex,  automatic,  and  instinctive  acts.  The  latter 
are  rather  the  raw  materials,  if  they  are  not  the  finished  products,  out 
of  which  habits  are  constructed.1  The  need  of  sensations  in  the  form- 
ing of  a  new  habit  is  too  patent  to  require  more  than  a  mere  mention. 
But  the  need  of  sensations  in  carrying  on  some  well-established  habit 
is  sometimes  in  danger  of  being  overlooked,  because  the  sense  factor 
maybe  so  "remote,"  to  use  Professor  James's  word,  so  reduced  in 
character,  as  to  lose  itself  in  the  "  fringe"  of  consciousness.  Take,  for 
example,  the  habit  of  writing,  the  habit  of  forming  verbal  symbols  in 
script.  It  is  only  necessary  to  close  the  eyes  while  using  the  pen  to 
note  how  dependent  the  habit  is  upon  the  visual  sensations  of  the 
materials  and  movements  involved.  Professor  Baldwin's  analysis  of 
handwriting,  in  Mental  Development,  Methods  and  Processes,  is  espe- 
cially instructive  as  to  the  details  of  this  illustration. 

2.  Granted  that  a  sensation  of  some  kind,  no  matter  how  remote 
and  reduced — it  may  even  be  of  the  kind  that  is  "centrally  excited" — 

1  It  is  not  intended  to  discriminate  rigorously  between  automatic  reflexes  and  habits;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  it  deemed  essential  to  the  argument  to  reckon  with  the  possibility  of  habits  shading  into 
reflexes.  It  is  not  a  question  of  terms  or  of  nomenclature.  A  habit  may  continue  to  be  called  a  habit,  if 
anyone  likes,  even  after  it  becomes  completely  automatic,  or  operated  by  stimuli  that  do  not  rise  above  the 
threshold  of  consciousness.  The  aim  of  this  part  of  the  discussion  is  simply  to  indicate  a  functional  rela- 
tion between  sensations  and  habits,  or  acquired  co-ordinations  —  some  habits,  if  not  all. 


62  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

is  essential  to  the  carrying  on  of  a  given  habit,  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
in  a  specific  case  the  absence  of  the  appropriate  sensation  or  sensations 
will  render  impossible  the  functioning  of  the  habit.  The  reaction,  if 
it  takes  place  at  all,  will  fail  of  the  sureness  and  smoothness  of  the 
habitual  reaction  ;  it  will  tend  to  become  wavering,  spasmodic,  too 
intense  or  too  feeble,  as  the  case  may  be.  Either  a  new  habit  has  to 
be  worked  out  with  reference  to  the  sensations  or  stimuli  actually 
present,  or  else  the  appropriate  stimuli  have  to  be  discovered.  An 
important  function  of  the  image  is  to  direct  the  search  for  the  appropriate 
stimuli.  It  is  quite  possible,  I  repeat,  that  when  the  appropriate 
stimuli  are  absent,  a  new  habit  may  be  formed  with  reference  to  the 
stimuli  actually  present  ;  but  this  is  liable  to  involve  a  long  and  con- 
scious interruption  of  some  process  more  or  less  essential  to  the  life  of 
the  organism.  If,  when  the  interruption  is  first  felt,  an  image  comes 
to  consciousness  which  reveals  the  appropriate  stimuli  in  their  associa- 
tion with  the  present  situation,  a  search  may  be  undertaken  for  the 
stimuli  and  the  habit  administered  with  due  economy.  The  so-called 
laws  of  the  association  of  ideas  —  contiguity,  similarity,  contrast, 
cause  and  effect,  and  the  rest  —  are  the  mechanism  of  which  the  image 
is  the  definition,  the  specific  instance,  in  directing  the  search  for  the 
stimuli  appropriate  to  the  functioning  of  a  given  habit.  In  the  pres- 
ence, then,  of  the  interruption  of  some  habit  through  the  absence  of 
appropriate  sensations  or  stimuli,  the  image  comes  in  as  a  more 
adequate  representation  of  the  situation  than  the  immediate  sense- 
perceptions  can  afford,  as  a  filling  out  of  the  incomplete,  the  imperfect, 
and  as  a  means  of  selecting  or  passing  to  the  appropriate  stimuli. 
It  is  possible,  also,  for  the  image  to  reveal  the  impossibility  of 
selecting  appropriate  stimuli,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  reconstructing 
the  habit  or  of  working  out  a  new  one. 

Suppose,  for  example,  that,  as  I  am  writing  these  words,  the  supply 
of  ink  in  the  fountain  pen  suddenly  gives  out.  The  writing  habit 
suffers  interruption,  not  only  because  the  movements  of  the  pen  will 
no  longer  leave  a  record  that  will  be  apparent  to  some  possible  reader, 
but  because  the  writing  movements  themselves  are  dependent  in  a 
measure  upon  the  visual  sensations  of  the  ink  tracings  that  follow  the 
pen.  Even  if  I  were  to  slip  a  sheet  of  carbon  paper  under  the  paper 
on  which  I  am  writing,  so  that  a  record  could  be  obtained  which  should 
be  visible  to  a  possible  reader,  though  not  visible  to  me  at  the  time  of 
writing,  I  could  not  proceed  as  before.  The  look  of  the  letters  and 
the   words   as  I   write  not  only  facilitates  their  comparatively  regular 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  63 

and  legible  formation,  but  also  assists  in  the  arrangement  of  the  larger 
units  of  the  sentence.  Doubtless  the  habit  of  writing  in  my  usual 
hand  with  a  dry  pen  over  carbon  paper  could  be  acquired  without 
much  expenditure  of  time  or  energy,  but  we  will  suppose  in  this  case 
that  it  is  neither  necessary  nor  desirable.  We  will  suppose  also,  for  the 
sake  of  the  illustration,  that  the  ink  bottle  is  not  immediately  at  hand, 
and  that  the  filling  of  the  fountain  pen  has  not  become  a  purely 
habitual  part  of  the  writing  act.  The  point  is  that  the  search  for  the 
ink  bottle  is  directed  by  an  image,  if  it  be  in  any  sense  a  conscious 
search.  The  image  may  be  simply  a  vague  feeling  of  tendency  in  a 
certain  direction  where  the  ink  bottle  is  likely  to  be  found,  or,  espe- 
cially in  the  presence  of  unsuccessful  efforts  to  find  it,  the  entire  con- 
tents of  a  shelf,  or  of  a  room,  say,  may  be  vividly  imaged  in  the 
attempt  to  locate  the  missing  article. 

3.  The  sensations  that  have  to  do  with  the  carrying  on  of  habits 
are  for  the  most  part  those  lying  in  the  "fringe"  of  conscious- 
ness. We  have  now  to  speak  of  sensations  that  lie  in  the  focus  of 
consciousness,  and  of  the  relation  of  the  imagination  to  them.  The 
function  of  sensations  of  this  order  has  been  implied  under  1  and  2. 
The  interruption  of  a  habit  through  absence  of  appropriate  stimuli 
brings  at  the  same  time  certain  stimuli  to  consciousness  which  may 
have  lain  far  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  But  the  more 
palpable  cases  are  those  that  arise  in  the  interruption  of  a  habit  through 
conflicting  habits,  or  through  unusual  and  inappropriate  stimuli.  In 
such  cases  it  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  discovering  the  missing 
stimuli  so  that  the  old  habit  may  go  on,  as  it  is  of  reconstructing  the 
habit  to  meet  the  new  demands  of  the  situation.  In  all  cases  of  inter- 
rupted habitual  activities  the  sense  factor  locates  the  interruption,  the 
strain,  with  reference  to  which  a  new  adjustment  has  to  be  made. 
Take  the  case,  for  example,  of  a  man  who  is  about  to  make  a  speech 
before  a  large  audience,  and  who  is  wholly  unaccustomed  to  such  an 
ordeal.  Few  under  such  circumstances  would  be  fortunate  enough  to 
escape  the  distracting  sensations  that  swarm  to  the  surface  of  the  stream 
of  consciousness,  coming  from  the  lower  regions  of  throat,  lungs,  heart, 
and  diaphragm,  and  all  indicating  the  interruption,  the  breaking  up,  of 
the  speech  habits  and  others,  under  the  stress  of  unwonted  and  inap- 
propriate stimuli. 

4.  It  is  possible  that  new  adjustments  may  be  worked  out  solely  in 
the  medium  of  peripheral  sensations,  without  involving  an  image. 
But  unless   backed   up   by   well-defined   instincts,   such  a  method    of 


64  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

acquiring  new  adjustments  is  laborious  and  expensive,  judged  by  the 
usual  standards.  Each  new  movement  in  the  process  has  to  be  made 
haphazard,  without  anticipation  of  probable  consequences;  and  the 
successful  adjustment,  when  finally  reached,  is  likely  to  represent  the 
survival  of  a  few  fit  and  elect  responses,  over  and  above  the  many  unfit 
and  condemned.  It  is  a  case  of  the  adage  :  "  Experience  is  a  hard 
school,  but  fools  will  learn  at  no  other."  True,  no  new  habit  or 
adjustment  can  be  learned  save  through  random  and  haphazard 
responses.  But  the  fact  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  in  the  case  of 
children,  the  environment,  or  stimuli,  is  controlled  by  their  elders,  so 
as  to  limit  the  range  and  direct  the  play  of  these  random  and  hap- 
hazard responses,  the  result  being  that  the  child  learns  through  the 
experience  of  the  race  as  well  as  through  his  own  experience  ;  and 
that,  in  the  case  of  the  more  mature,  models  of  various  kinds,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  imagination,  play  their  part  in  economizing  effort. 
New  habits  and  adjustments  may  be  acquired,  to  repeat,  solely  through 
the  medium  of  the  sensations,  but  in  the  interests  of  greater  efficiency 
and  economy  the  imagination  enters  as  a  factor. 

What  is  commonly  termed  learning  through  imitation  lies  between 
learning  through  merely  immediate  sense-perceptions  and  learning 
through  the  imagination,  and  may  properly  be  considered  by  way  of 
an  intermediate  step  in  the  discussion.  The  model  imitated,  particu- 
larly if  it  be  not  a  finished  thing,  but  a  process  of  making  or  doing 
something,  performs  the  function  of  selecting  stimuli  for  response  on 
the  part  of  the  learner.  It  tends  to  limit  the  range  and  direct  the  play 
of  his  random  and  haphazard  impulses.  The  model  imitated  does 
not  have  to  be,  of  course,  an  immediately  present  external  thing  or 
process.  It  may  be  a  memory  image  of  the  thing  or  process.  Most 
of  the  plays  of  early  childhood  afford  illustrations  of  how  new  habits 
are  acquired  through  imitating  a  model  held  in  the  form  of  a  memory 
image.  (I  am  using  the  expression  "  memory  image  "  in  the  sense  in 
which  Hume  uses  the  expression  "  idea  of  memory,"  meaning  a  pretty 
literal  reproduction  of  the  sense  "impression,"  rather  than  in  the 
sense  of  an  image  consciously  referred  to  the  past.)  The  memory 
image  functioning  in  this  way  is  psychologically  creative,  in  that  it  is 
instrumental  in  the  forming  of  new  habits  and  adjustments. 

But  there  arises  a  demand  for  greater  efficiency  and  economy  than 
that  realizable  through  imitating  either  an  external  model  or  a  memory 
image.  Every  break  or  interruption  of  the  course  of  a  habit  is  a 
unique    event.      The    crisis    will    be    met    most    economically    if   the 


PS  YCHOLOG  Y  OF  THE  IMA  GIN  A  TION  6  5 

resources  of  the  past  experience  of  the  individual,  not  of  anyone  else  to 
the  exclusion  of  his  own,  be  brought  to  bear.  No  memory  image  will 
meet  the  situation  most  effectively,  because  the  situation  is  new;  it  is  a 
break  in  the  habitual.  It  must  be  an  idea  of  the  imagination,  to  use 
Hume's  expression  —  an  image  which  reconstructs  and  projects  the  old 
to  meet  the  new. 

Modern  drama  and  fiction  are  rich  in  illustrations  of  this  point. 
The  plot  conflict  frequently  centers  about  the  success  or  failure  of  some 
dominant  idea  of  the  imagination,  as  conceived  by  some  individual,  to 
meet  the  situation.  We  are  not  interested,  as  a  rule,  in  how  success- 
fully one  character  may  imitate  another,  except  in  burlesque;  but  we 
are  interested  in  how  a  character  faces  a  difficulty,  a  break  in  the  course 
of  his  career,  a  problem  ;  and  we  follow  eagerly  his  attempt  to  bring  his 
own  resources  to  bear,  whether  he  be  a  Prospero,  winning  almost  perfect 
triumph  through  the  range  and  power  of  his  ideas,  or  a  Caliban,  almost 
entirely  at  the  mercy  of  his  own  impulses  and  external  circumstances. 

To  sum  up  the  points  made  on  the  physiological  and  on  the  psycho- 
logical sides  : 

1.  The  Atilageoi  the  image,  the  physiological  condition,  comprises 
the  association  fibers  connecting  the  various  lines  of  sensorimotor  activ- 
ity. To  say  that  the  association  fibers  connect  various  brain-centers 
might  be  misleading,  unless  it  be  understood  that  in  connecting  centers 
thev  are  also  connecting  peripheries.  It  is  the  whole  sensori-motor 
activity,  including  sense-organ,  nerve-fiber,  muscle,  or  gland,  that  is 
connected  with  other  sensori-motor  activities  by  means  of  the  asso- 
ciation fibers.  Even  this  is  possibly  misleading,  as  implying  that  the 
association  fibers  are  somehow  external  or  adventitious  to  the  sensori- 
motor activities.  The  co-ordination  of  various  sensori-motor  activities, 
of  which  the  association  fibers  are  the  physiological  mechanism  and 
the  image  the  conscious  representation,  is,  so  to  speak,  a  "  union  loop," 
constituted  by  the  various  sensori-motor  lines. 

The  image  arises  in  the  tension  between  the  new  co-ordination  and 
the  older,  more  immediate,  sensori-motor  reactions. 

2.  On  the  psychological  side  the  image  comes  to  consciousness  as 
the  means  for  directing  a  search  for  stimuli  or  sensations  appropriate 
either  to  the  carrying  on  or  to  the  reconstruction  of  a  habit  which  has 
been  interrupted,  either  through  lack  of  appropriate  stimuli  or  through 
the  presence  of  inappropriate  stimuli  and  conflicting  habits  or 
impulses.  The  image  may  be  either  a  memory  image — in  other  words, 
a  reproductive  or  imitative  image — or  it  may  be  a  reconstructive  image, 


66  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

an  image  of  the  imagination  —  to  put  it  tautologically.  But  in  either 
case  it  is  a  creative  image,  in  that  it  modifies  the  response  —  continues 
the  functioning  of  a  habit  or  directs  its  reconstruction. 

Putting  the  physiological  and  the  psychological  sides  together,  we 
note  that  the  image  is  not  simply  a  faded  copy  of  sense-impression, 
and  that  the  imagination  is  not  simply  either  the  passive  recipient  or 
the  arbitrary  manipulator  of  so  much  sense-material  given  from  with- 
out ;  but  that  the  image  is  a  conscious  anticipation  and  selection  of  the 
conditions  that  will  free  impulses  and  organize  them  into  useful  habits, 
representing  as  it  does  a  co-ordination  of  sensori-motor  reactions;  and 
that  the  co-ordination  of  sensori-motor  reactions  becomes  effective  as 
a  co-ordination,  because  it  does  anticipate  and  select  stimuli  that  are 
essential  to  its  realization,  and  is  not  dependent  solely  on  the  reactions 
and  stimuli  immediately  present. 

It  is  evident,  I  presume,  that  an  assumption  which  underlies  this 
discussion  is  concerned  with  the  nature  of  habit.  I  do  not  propose  to 
argue  the  assumption  here,  but  merely  to  mention  it.  No  attempt  is 
made  to  go  back  of  habit  into  original  instincts  and  impulses,  because 
it  seems  probable  that  in  the  process  of  transforming  instincts  and 
impulses  into  habits  the  image  plays  little  or  no  part  ;  the  transforma- 
tion is  assumed  to  take  place  through  the  medium  of  sensations,  the 
instincts  standing  for  ready-made,  inherited  co-ordinations  —  uncon- 
scious images,  to  put  it  paradoxically.  In  this  discussion  the  existence 
of  habits  is  taken  for  granted,  and  we  are  concerned  with  habits  which 
do  not  function  wholly  below  the  level  of  consciousness,  but  which 
require  some  conscious  element,  sensation,  or  image,  no  matter  how 
remote  or  reduced.  The  function  of  the  image  is  to  economize  the 
process  of  transforming  one  habit  or  set  of  habits  into  another.  A 
habit  is  an  adjustment  to  a  relatively  fixed  environment,  or  set  of 
stimuli.  But  the  environment  moves  on  ;  new  conditions  arise  ;  new 
demands  have  to  be  met.  The  habit  is  interrupted.  The  various 
sensori-motor  reactions  involved  in  a  habit  are  shaken  loose,  so  to 
speak,  like  strands  of  a  broken  cable.  The  points  of  interruption,  of 
strain,  are  located  by  sensations.  The  reconstruction  of  the  habit  to 
meet  the  new  conditions  may  be  made  through  the  medium  of  periph- 
eral sense-experience  exclusively,  but  only  at  a  wasteful  cost  of  time 
and  energy.  The  function  of  the  image  is  to  diminish  this  cost  of 
time  and  energy  through  anticipating  and  selecting  stimuli  appropriate 
to  the  reconstruction  of  the  habit.  This  habit  has  not  functioned 
hitherto  as  a  separate  thing.      It  is  part  of  a  co-ordination,  part  of  what 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  67 

is  sometimes  called  a  "bundle  of  habits."  The  image  is  this  fact  come 
to  consciousness.  The  image  anticipates  only  as  it  retrospects.  It  is 
pro-pensive,  to  use  Hume's  word,  only  under  the  momentum  of  past 
experience. 

There  remains  to  consider  the  relations  of  the  imagination  to 
reason,  a  problem  set  both  by  Spinoza  and  by  Hume.  With  both,  the 
imagination  and  reason  are,  finally,  incompatible  categories.  True, 
as  I  have  already  pointed  out  (pp.  47  ff.),  Spinoza  and  Hume  do  not 
agree  as  to  the  function  and  value  of  these  categories.  It  is  reason, 
according  to  Hume,  that  informs  us  that  our  perceptions  are  inter- 
rupted (in  this  respect  reason  corresponding  exactly  to  Spinoza's  defi- 
nition of  the  imagination);  whereas  it  is  the  imagination,  according 
to  Hume,  that  makes  possible  an  idea  of  the  continuity  of  the  objective 
world,  to  which  our  interrupted  perceptions  refer  (in  this  respect  cor- 
responding exactly  to  Spinoza's  definition  of  reason).  This  very 
transposition  of  terms  only  brings  out  more  clearly  how  both  were  at 
this  point  grappling  with  the  same  problem  —  the  old  problem  of  the 
one  and  the  many.  It  is  a  case  where  transposition  of  terms  does  not 
alter  the  balance  of  the' equation  which  states  the  problem.  Rather  is 
it  where  they  most  nearly  agree  in  the  use  of  terms  that  they  differ 
most  widely  in  meaning  and  in  form  of  solution.  Both  agree  that 
the  imagination  is  the  essence  of  individual  variation.  But  with  Spi- 
noza this  locates  the  source  of  error  and  confusion  ;  whereas  with  Hume 
this  locates  the  last  resort,  if  not  for  truth,  at  least  for  the  possibility 
of  truth.  Both  agree  that  reason  can  originate  no  new  idea.  But  with 
Spinoza  reason  is  a  way  of  becoming  conscious  of  laws  given  by  God  ; 
whereas  with  Hume  it  is  a  way  of  becoming  conscious  of  laws  given  by 
custom.  Both  agree  that  the  materials  of  the  imagination  are  sense 
data  given  from  without.  But  with  Spinoza  the  imagination  is  con- 
ceived as  passivelv  receptive  ;  whereas  with  Hume  it  is  conceived  as 
actively  manipulating  and  recombining  its  data.  Even  in  their  appar- 
ently final  and  complete  agreement  that  the  imagination  and  reason 
are  incompatible,  Spinoza  proposes  the  absolute  exclusion  of  one  cate- 
gory, the  imagination,  from  the  realm  of  philosophy;  whereas  Hume 
continues  to  keep  house  with  both  on  his  hands. 

I  think  we  are  prepared  to  recognize  that  from  a  psychological 
point  of  view  the  imagination  is  not  always  compatible  with  reason. 
The  imagination  has  the  defects  of  its  qualities.  Its  characteristic 
function  of  transcending  the  immediately  present,  in  order  to  direct 


68  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

the  search  for  stimuli  appropriate  to  the  continuance  or  recon- 
struction of  essential  habits,  demands  a  certain  range  for  free  play 
which  may,  particularly  in  the  event  of  failure  to  discover  the  appro- 
priate stimuli,  be  converted  into  license.  The  so-called  laws  of  associa- 
ciation  —  contiguity,  similarity,  and  the  rest  —  which  are  the  mechanism 
by  which  the  resources  of  past  experience  are  brought  to  bear  on  a 
particular  situation,  may,  especially  in  the  case  of  failure,  continue  to 
run  on  their  own  momentum,  one  idea  calling  up  another,  in  a  sort  of 
endless  chain  of  mind-wandering.  The  energy  which  should  have 
been  directed  toward  meeting  the  concrete  situation  and  in  forming 
practical  habits  of  conduct  becomes  diverted  into  mere  play  of  mind, 
into  mere  day-dreaming.  Action,  instead  of  being  controlled  through 
ideas,  is  postponed  for  the  sake  of  the  satisfaction  that  attends  the  flow 
of  centrally  aroused  sensations.  When  the  actual  conditions  of  action 
are  lost  sight  of — which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  periph- 
erally excited  sensations  are  ignored- — the  play  of  imagery  runs 
away  with  itself;  it  becomes  capricious,  untrustworthy,  and  misleading. 
To  use  a  mathematical  comparison  again,  the  imagination  which  first 
emerges  as  one  of  the  foci  of  an  organic  ellipse  may  become  para- 
bolic, and  even  hyperbolic. 

And  yet  it  does  not  cease  to  be  a  function  of  the  cone  of  experi- 
ence. It  is  precisely  at  this  point  in  the  analysis  that  the  adequate 
idea,  or  reason,  is  seen  to  have  its  place.  The  adequate  idea,  or 
reason,  is  the  deeper  principle  of  habit  or  control  which  lies  back  of 
the  play  of  imagery.  It  is  the  idea  which  is  adequate,  equal  to,  a 
match  for,  the  demands  of  the  actual  situation.  In  a  sense,  it  is  older 
and  more  fundamental  than  the  imagination,  for  it  is  the  side  of 
response  which  is  present  in  the  first  instinctive  reaction.  But  at  the 
same  time  it  is  one  with  the  imagination,  being  the  imagination  as 
controlling  most  effectively  the  given  situation  through  the  free  play 
of  its  own  resources.  Reason  is  the  imagination  in  focus,  both  in  the 
physical  and  in  the  mathematical  sense  of  the  word. 

It  is  significant  to  note  that  comparatively  little  imagery  is  associ- 
ated with  reason.  A  concept  or  an  idea,  or  a  purely  intellectual 
process,  is  described  as  a  pale,  washed  out,  abstract  thing,  in  contrast 
with  the  rich,  sensuous  content  of  the  imagination.  It  is  usually  taken 
for  granted  that  the  imagination  is  somehow  closer  to  sense-percep- 
tions, more  of  the  earth,  earthy;  whereas  concepts,  ideas,  reason,  are 
more  remote,  transcendent,  spiritual.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the 
negative  virtues  thrive  with  most  safety  to  their  possessors  in   the  soil 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  IMAGINATION  69 

of  reason  ;  for  a  negative  virtue  planted  in  the  soil  of  the  imagination 
is  liable  to  become  a  luxuriant  vice.  From  a  psychological  point  of 
view,  however,  there  is  no  distinction  of  value  between  reason  and  the 
imagination.  The  distinction  between  the  two  is  one  of  sensuous 
content,  as  has  just  been  indicated,  and  this  is  to  be  interpreted  as  one 
of  function.  A  concept,  like  a  habit,  is  carried  on,  is  consciously  con- 
trolled, by  means  of  a  sense  factor,  which  is  usually  exceedingly 
remote  and  reduced.  In  the  case  of  a  concept  the  sense  factor  is  cen- 
trally excited  ;  in  other  words,  an  image.  In  the  case  of  a  habit  the 
sense  factor  is  more  frequently  peripherally  excited  ;  in  other  words, 
a  sensation.  But  even  this  distinction  between  concept  and  habit  is 
rather  arbitrary.  By  either  is  meant  a  consciously  acquired  process 
which  is  carried  on  with  the  minimum  of  conscious  attention. 
Reason,  as  Hume  pointed  out,  is  not  engaged  in  originating  new 
ideas.  Neither  is  habit.  Their  business  is  to  continue  the  function- 
ing of  those  already  originated  and  worked  out.  It  is  true  also,  as 
Spinoza  pointed  out,  that  reason  is  adequate.  It  is  the  adjustment  so 
completely  worked  out,  so  equal  to,  so  adequate  to  the  situation,  that 
it  is  functionally  one  with  it.  Within  the  province  in  which  it  works 
reason's  control,  the  control  of  the  adequate  idea,  is  supreme.  What 
wonder  that  a  philosopher  should  wish  to  make  that  province  the  uni- 
verse, or  the  universe  that  province! 

An  idea  of  the  imagination,  however,  represents  control  as  ideal, 
not  as  fact.  It  represents  a  possible  process  of  reconstructing  adjust- 
ments and  habits;  it  is  not  an  actual  adjustment.  Its  sensuous  con- 
tent is  richer  and  more  varied  than  that  of  reason,  for  only  in  this  way 
can  it  anticipate  conditions  and  bring  about  responses  in  the  process 
of  learning  the  new  adjustment.  It  arises  normally  in  a  stress,  in  the 
presence  of  fresh  demands,  and  new  problems.  It  looks  forward  in 
every  possible  direction,  because  it  is  important  and  difficult  to  foresee 
consequences.  But  suppose  the  new  adjustment  to  be  made  with  reason- 
able success  —  reasonable,  note.  Suppose  the  ideal  to  be  realized. 
With  practice  the  adjustment  becomes  less  problematic,  more  under 
control — that  is,  it  comes  to  require  less  conscious  attention  to  bring 
it  about.  The  image  loses  some  of  its  sensuous  content.  It  becomes 
worn  away,  more  remote,  until  at  last  it  becomes  respectably  vague 
and  abstract  enough  to  be  classed  as  a  concept.  The  imagination, 
then,  is  the  essential  reconstructive  process  between  habit  and  habit ; 
between  concept  and  concept  ;  between  reason  and  reason. 

If  control  be  anything  else  but  self-control,  then  reason  and  the 


70  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

imagination  are  incompatible.  Reason  becomes  the  outer,  external 
law,  fate,  custom,  or  substance,  to  which  the  individual  must  conform 
or  perish;  and  the  imagination  becomes  the  unseen  caprice,  the  idle, 
self-deceptive  dreaming,  of  the  unregenerate  individual.  But  if  con- 
trol be  won  through  conscious  effort  and  maintained  through  con- 
scious experience,  then  the  imagination  and  reason  are  simply  stages 
in  one  process. 


APPLICATIONS  AND  CONCLUSION. 

It  is  apparent,  no  doubt,  that  the  psychological  analysis  of  the 
imagination  which  has  been  undertaken  above  is  closer  to  Hume  than 
to  Spinoza.  How  is  it  to  avoid  the  difficulties  that  confronted 
Hume's  analysis  of  the  same  faculty?  Or,  if  we  may  cast  the  burden 
of  the  proof  upon  Hume,  why  the  difficulties  that  arose  in  his  attempt 
to  make  the  imagination  the  carrier  of  the  ideas  of  causation  and  of 
substance  ?  We  cannot  lay  the  blame  of  all  of  them  to  his  doctrine 
of  sense-impressions,  and  images  derived  after  the  manner  of  Hobbes 
from  sense-impressions.  Such  a  doctrine  might  even  dissociate  mental 
imagery  from  the  body  of  sense-impressions  so  far  as  to  make  one 
the  mere  ghost  of  the  other;  and  yet,  if  the  imagination  does  work 
in  an  orderly  and  progressive  manner,  it  might  still  be  described  as 
the  carrier  of  the  ideas  of  causation  and  of  substance;  just  as  ghosts 
might  be  conceived  of  as  rational  beings  dwelling  in  a  real  world  like 
the  gods  of  old,  and  influencing  the  course  of  events  in  harmony  with 
the  decrees  of  fate.  Not  metaphysical  difficulties  so  much  as  actual 
psychological  difficulties  stared  Hume  in  the  face  and  were  frankly 
acknowledged.  The  imagination  is  not  always  orderly  and  progres- 
sive. It  is  often  capricious  and  ambiguous.  Hume  saw  that  the 
imagination  is  the  distinctively  subjective  element ;  a  potency,  not  a 
resultant;  anticipating,  prophetic  —  to  recall  Spinoza  —  not  prede- 
termining. And  yet  it  was  at  the  same  time  the  only  element  left  to 
Hume  which  could  carry  anything.  It  was  the  only  element  possess- 
ing the  quality  of  continuity  and  capable  of  transcending  the  present 
moment.  Hence  it  was  loaded  down  with  those  great  objective  cate- 
gories of  causation  and  substance ;  and,  mere  ghost  that  it  was,  it 
broke  down  under  the  strain. 

The  image  comes  to  consciousness  in  the  conflict  between  tend- 
encies to  action.  The  presence  of  the  image  marks  the  stage  as 
incomplete,  as  an  experience  in  the  process  of  being  transformed, 
reconstructed.  Taken  in  itself,  the  stage  is  but  a  cross-section  of  a 
given  situation  ;  not  the  complete  experience  that  is  to  be.  To  regard 
such  a  stage  as  complete  in  itself  is  to  mistake  a  part  for  a  whole,  a 
function  for  a  structure.  It  is  true  that  this  stage  is  no  mere  abstrac- 
tion from  the   sense-elements  of  experience,   as   many    of    the   older 

7i 


72  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

psychologists  would  have  us  believe;  even  in  its  earliest  and  crudest 
form  it  is  a  kind  of  rehearsal  of  the  performance  that  is  to  come  later. 
As  a  rehearsal  it  has  to  be  as  absorbing  as  the  performance  itself ;  and, 
though  on  a  reduced  scale,  it  may  give  as  full  a  sense  of  power  and  of 
satisfaction.  But  apart  from  the  performance  it  is  meaningless.  It  is 
incomplete  in  itself.  The  real  test  of  a  rehearsal  is  always  the  per- 
formance. And,  furthermore,  the  character  of  the  performance  will 
determine  the/<?<r/  of  attention  in  a  subsequent  rehearsal. 

The  weakness  in  Hume's  theory  of  the  imagination  lay  in  its  fail- 
ure to  locate  the  test  of  truth  in  action  itself.  The  imagination  is  but 
the  half-way  house  on  the  road  to  this  destination,  and  is  not  the  per- 
manent abiding-place  of  the  objective  categories  of  causation  and 
substance.  It  can  be  held  responsible  only  in  and  through  the  action 
that  emerges  as  the  expression  of  its  anticipatory  function.  It  is  true 
that  the  imagination  involves  in  its  activity  the  use  of  the  categories 
of  causation  and  substance,  just  as  a  rehearsal  of  a  drama  involves  the 
stage  itself;  we  can  go  farther  and  say  that  in  the  activity  of  the 
imagination,  or  in  the  tension  that  this  activity  represents,  these  cate- 
gories come  to  consciousness  as  the  conditions  of  action  and  take  on 
new  meaning;  just  as  in  the  rehearsal  of  a  drama  the  stage,  its 
machinery  and  accessories,  receive  a  larger  share  of  attention,  it  may 
be,  than  in  the  actual  performance.  But  the  imagination  cannot  on 
this  account  be  conceived  as  the  sole  carrier  of  these  categories.  In 
the  imagination  these  categories  represent  the.  conditions  of  action.  In 
the  forthcoming  experience,  in  the  performance  itself,  they  are  the 
conditions  of  action. 

By  way  of  final  application  of  the  points  brought  to  attention  in 
the  psychological  analysis  undertaken  above,  let  us  return  to  the  sum- 
mary of  problems  on  p.  48. 

1.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  to  be  held  responsible  for 
the  detached,  fragmentary  particulars  of  experience?     (Spinoza.) 

Compared  with  reason,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out  pp.  68- 
69,  the  imagination  is  much  the  richer  in  sensuous  content,  because  it 
represents  the  conscious  attempt  to  control  the  making  of  a  new 
adjustment  or  habit,  whereas  reason  stands  for  the  acquired  adjust- 
ment. In  this  sense  the  imagination  is  responsible  for  the  particulars 
of  experience,  that  is,  it  brings  them  to  consciousness  in  the  process 
of  directing  a  reconstruction  of  experience.  Nevertheless,  in  this 
conscious  attempt  to  control  economically  the  making  of  a  new  adjust- 
ment or  habit,  the  imagination  can  at  best  only  approximate  the  selection 


APPLICA  TIONS  AND  CONCL  USION  7  3 

of  the  appropriate  stimuli.  It  must  of  necessity  include  as  well 
stimuli  that  are  not  appropriate.  Its  forecast  is  more  or  less  problem- 
atic. There  is  truth,  therefore,  in  holding  the  imagination  respon- 
sible, as  Spinoza  does,  for  the  detached  and  fragmentary  particulars  of 
experience.  It  is  only  when  the  imagination  is  viewed  as  a  faculty 
which  passively  receives  impressions  from  without,  that  this  character- 
istic becomes  a  consuming  fault.  Once  let  the  imagination  be  viewed, 
not  as  passively  receptive,  but  as  a  recombining,  anticipatory,  "  pro- 
pensive"  faculty,  and  this  characteristic  is  seen  to  be  responsible  rather 
to  the  novelty  of  the  situation  which  the  imagination  is  attempting  to 
meet,  than  to  any  inherent  flaw  in  the  faculty  itself. 

2.  How  far  can  the  imagination  be  dissociated  from  the  under- 
standing or  reason  ?     (Spinoza.) 

From  a  psychological  point  of  view,  that  is,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  analysis  of  experience  as  maintained  by  the  individual,  the  two 
cannot  be  dissociated.  They  are  different  stages  in  one  rhythmic  pro- 
cess. They  are  as  essential  to  one  another  as  any  two  things  that  are 
polar.  Reason  is  the  side  of  acquired,  organized  control ;  it  is  the 
ratio,  the  well-devised  and  tested  plan.  In  a  universe  that  manifested 
no  change  or  progress,  that  might  be  all  there  was  to  it.  But  reason 
is  continually  being  outgrown  by  life.  The  procession  moves  on. 
Demands  arise  that  old  adjustments,  reason,  cannot  meet.  An  unknown 
quantity,  an  x,  develops  in  the  equation  between  the  adequate  idea 
and  the  nature  of  things.  No  manipulation  of  previous  equations,  or 
of  cut-and-dried  formulas,  will  alone  suffice.  The  situation  is  unique. 
The  value  of  x  is  new.  That  sense  of  the  particularity  of  the  situa- 
iton  —  the  "thisness"  of  the  logicians  —  is  the  sensation  or  "impres- 
sion." The  appreciation  of  the  sensation  in  the  light  of  previous 
adjustments  and  habits,  the  interpretation  of  the  break  in  this  particu- 
lar habit  or  set  of  habits,  the  conscious  anticipation  of  stimuli  appro- 
priate to  the  reorganization  of  adjustments  in  order  that  the  difficulty 
may  be  surmounted,  are  suggestions  of  what  is  the  function  of  the 
imagination.  The  success  of  the  function  of  the  imagination  in  a 
particular  case  is  the  command  for  its  own  decline.  The  successful 
adjustment  becomes  through  practice  more  and  more  a  possession  of 
reason.  Control  comes  to  be  exercised  with  the  minimum  of  conscious 
stimulus.  Yet  this  adjustment,  too,  may  later  be  brought  into  diffi- 
culties, though  not  exactly  as  before.  So  organically  are  reason  and 
the  imagination  related  in  progressive  experience  that  it  would  be 
truer  to  say  that  reason  is  the  imagination  generalized,  and  the  imagi- 


74  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

nation  is  reason  particularized  —  which  means  that  the  analysis  is  not 
to  be  pushed  to  the  extreme  limit,  lest  the  reality  which  it  dissects 
come  to  life  and  escape  the  bounds  of  word-distinctions. 

3.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  a  unifying,  anticipating 
activity  ?     (Hume.) 

4.  To  what  extent  is  the  imagination  co-operative  with  reason  ? 
(Hume.) 

5.  Why  does  the  imagination  fail  to  give  a  firm  foundation  to  a 
rational  system  of  philosophy  —  especially  to  the  concepts  of  causation 
and  substance,  meaning  by  substance  continued  and  independent 
existence  ?     (Hume.) 

These  points  are  so  closely  related  that  they  may  be  briefly  dis- 
cussed as  one. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  value  of  Hume's  theory  of  the  imagination 
as  a  recombining,  unifying,  anticipatory  activity,  a  theory  which  is 
both  a  criticism  of  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  imagination  and  a  distinct 
contribution  to  modern  psychology.  I  have  attempted  to  point  out, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  hostility  between  the  imagination  and  reason, 
which  grows  more  open  and  acute  with  the  development  of  the  Treatise, 
and  we  have  seen  that  Hume  came  to  doubt  the  value  of  the  imagina- 
tion as  a  foundation  of  a  rational  system  of  philosophy.  Both  Spinoza 
and  Hume  doubted  the  compatibility  of  reason  and  the  imagination. 
Their  doubts  can  be  shown  to  flow,  I  believe,  from  two  psychological 
assumptions  held  in  common  :  (1)  the  assumption  that  an  analysis  of 
the  conditions  of  experience  could  be  stated  ultimately  in  terms  of 
knowledge,  instead  of  in  terms  of  action  ;  and  (2)  the  assumption  that 
the  data  of  the  imagination  and  of  the  perceptive  faculties  were  so 
much  material  given  from  without. 

Spinoza's  ideal  was,  as  we  have  already  seen  (p.  11),  a  character 
consisting  of  a  knowledge  of  the  unity  existing  between  the  mind  and 
the  whole  of  nature.  If  such  a  character  or  such  a  knowledge  could 
be  obtained,  it  would  undoubtedly  be  reason,  the  unity,  as  controlled 
or  habitual.  The  existence  of  the  imagination,  from  this  point  of 
view,  is  plainly  an  evidence  of  failure  to  attain  this  character  consisting 
of  knowledge.  If  philosophy,  as  Spinoza  seems  to  imply,  be  that  per- 
fect character  consisting  of  a  knowledge  of  the  unity  existing  between 
the  mind  and  the  whole  of  nature,  it  can  have  no  room  finally  for  the 
category  of  the  imagination. 

Hume's  ideal  seems  to  have  been  the  stating  of  the  world  in  terms 
of  the  ideas  of  individual  experience  —  again  a  knowledge  ideal  —  and, 


APPLICATIONS  AND  CONCLUSION  75 

as  we  have  seen,  he  found  himself  caught  in  a  dualism  between  reason 
and  the  imagination.  He  discovered  that  reason  tells  us  "that  all 
our  distinct  perceptions  are  distinct  existences,  and  that  the  mind 
never  perceives  any  real  connection  among  distinct  existences  "  (p.  46, 
supra).  Reason  cuts  the  very  substance  of  the  world  out  from  under 
the  feet  of  individual  experience.  "Did  our  perceptions  either  inhere 
in  something  simple  and  individual,  or  did  the  mind  perceive  some 
real  connection  among  them,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  the  case" 
(p.  46,  supra).  Hume  also  discovered  that  the  imagination  makes 
possible  the  ideas  of  causation  and  of  substance,  which  reason  denies. 
But  he  left  the  imagination  where  he  discovered  it,  hanging  in  mid- 
air, like  his  man  in  the  iron  cage. 

The  point  made  in  criticism  of  the  assumption  that  an  analysis  of 
the  conditions  of  experience  can  be  stated  ultimately  in  terms  of  knowl- 
edge, is  that  psychologically  reason  and  the  imagination  represent 
mutually  essential  degrees  of  conscious  control  over  action.  Reason  is 
the  more  effective,  more  complete,  and  therefore  less  conscious  instru- 
ment of  control.  Imagination  is  the  directing  of  a  process  of  read- 
justment, and  therefore  is  a  more  conscious  instrument  of  control. 

The  second  assumption  (the  numbering  of  the  assumptions  is,  of 
course,  a  matter  of  no  moment),  namely,  that  the  data  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  of  the  perceptive  faculties  are  so  much  material  given  from 
without,  is  involved  in  our  last  problem  : 

6.  Does  the  imagination  simply  receive  or  operate  upon  ready- 
made  data,  conveyed  to  it  through  the  sense-organs  ?  To  what  extent 
is  it  merely  receptive  ?  To  what  extent  is  it  creative  ?  (Spinoza  and 
Hume.) 

To  assume  that  sense  data  are  literally  data,  or  given  from  without, 
ready-made,  is  open  to  objection,  if  for  no  other  reason,  on  the  ground 
of  the  difficulties  and  contradictions  which  it  involves.  If  sense  data 
are  distinct  existences,  as  their  plurality  would  imply,  then  we  have 
on  our  hands  Hume's  problem  of  trying  vainly  to  relate  them.  Imagi- 
nation may  succeed'in  tying  them  together,  but  reason  says  :  "No,  they 
come  as  many  from  without;  and  the  without  from  which  they  come  I 
know  only  as  I  know  them  — and  I  know  nothing  simple  and  individual 
in  which  they  inhere."  The  psychological  view  that  sensations,  what- 
ever else  they  are,  and  wherever  else  they  may  come  from,  are  to  be 
taken  as  we  find  them,  and  dealt  with  according  to  their  function  in 
locating  critical  points  in  experience,  avoids  a  metaphysical  problem 
which  deserves  dissolution  rather  than  solution. 


76  THE  IMAGINATION  IN  SPINOZA  AND  HUME 

As  to  the  latter  part  of  the  problem.  Psychologically,  every  image, 
and,  for  that  matter,  every  sensation,  is  creative.  It  is  creative  in  that 
it  is  a  stimulus;  it  modifies  action  or  habits  in  someway.  Every 
image  recreates  in  some  way  the  physical  and  psychical  disposition  of 
the  individual  organism  that  experiences  it.  As  Professor  James 
says  in  his  chapter  on  "The  Stream  of  Thought,"  there  "is  no  proof 
that  the  same  bodily  sensation  is  ever  got  by  us  twice Every  sen- 
sation corresponds  to  some  cerebral  action.  For  an  identical  sensa- 
tion to  recur  it  would  have  to  occur  the  second  time  in  an  unmodified 
brain.  But  as  this,  strictly  speaking,  is  a  physiological  impossibility, 
so  is  an  unmodified  feeling  an  impossibility;  for  to  every  brain  modi- 
fication, however  small,  must  correspond  a  change  of  equal  amount  in 
the  feeling  which  the  brain  subserves."  {Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  231-3.)  There  are,  of  course,  degrees  in  the  modification 
undergone  —  degrees  so  wide  apart  as  to  amount  practically  to  differ- 
ences of  kind  —  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  criterion  of  the  creative 
character  of  an  image  is,  as  I  understand  Ribot  to  maintain  (p.  53, 
supra),  the  novelty  of  the  thing  created.  A  thing  which  is  to  all  out- 
ward appearances  perfectly  commonplace  may  be  the  result  of  a  tre- 
mendous reconstruction  of  individual  habits;  and  a  thing  which  to 
outward  appearance  is  strikingly  novel  may  be  the  result  of  compara- 
tively little  readjustment  of  individual. habits. 

Throughout  this  entire  discussion  there  has  been  a  constant 
endeavor,  perhaps  not  always  apparent,  to  search  for  and  to  appre- 
ciate, however  inadequately,  the  positive  value  and  significance  to 
psychology  of  these  theories  regarding  the  imagination. 

The  strength  of  Spinoza's  theory  of  the  imagination  lies  in  its 
rejection  of  the  fallacious  scholastic  doctrine  which  explains  the  forma- 
tion of  abstract  ideas  or  concepts  as  a  process  of  agglutinating  images. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  ideas  so  formed  would  lack  universality  as 
much  as  the  sense-materials  out  of  which  they  were  made.  There 
could  be  no  agreement  between  any  two  individuals  as  to  the  respect- 
ive contents  of  their  minds.  But  in  rejecting  such  a  doctrine  Spinoza 
also  rejected  individuality  as  such,  in  favor  of  that  spiritual  automaton 
which  is  the  knowledge  of  its  union  with  the  whole  of  nature.  The 
only  doctrine  regarding  sensation  and  imagination  that  he  could  com- 
mand was  one  that  compelled  him  to  reject  both  categories  from 
philosophy,  and  retain  but  the  bare  forms  of  thought,  which  reduce 
to  identity. 

The  strength  of    Hume's    theory,  on  the  other   hand,  lies   in   its 


APPLICATIONS  AND  CONCLUSION  7  7 

recognition  of  the  imagination,  not  as  mere  revival,  but  as  the  indi- 
vidual's carrying  forward,  projecting,  of  the  data  of  his  experience.  With 
Hume,  however,  as  well  as  with  Spinoza,  the  individual  was  an  abstrac- 
tion. Spinoza  left  him  the  passive  prey  to  outward  circumstances  ;  and 
pointed  out  that  his  salvation  lay  in  becoming  the  zero  of  one  member 
of  a  mathematical  equation,  the  other  member  being  Deus  sive  Natura. 
Hume  equipped  him  for  progressive  action,  provided  him  with  certain 
important  instruments  with  which  to  control  a  world  of  objects;  and 
then  failed  to  find  him  a  field  of  action,  a  world  in  which  to  live. 

By  a  curious  paradox,  he  who  set  out  with  intellectual  unity  —  the 
unity  of  science  —  as  his  ideal,  became  the  greatest  separatist  in  the 
history  of  philosophy  -—  his  dualism  cutting  far  deeper  than  Descartes's 
and  into  the  very  heart  of  character,  of  individuality.  Whereas  he  who 
has  been  commonly  regarded  as  the  arch-skeptic  undertook  to  found 
his  most  important  philosophic  categories  on  the  forward  movement  of 
the  imagination,  which  faculty  is  the  basis,  I  think  we  may  say,  of  the 
spirit  of  all  prophecy. 


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